Saturday, October 22, 2011
1 Million Lockers
There are one million numbered lockers in a row. They all start out closed. On your first pass, you flip every locker, so each one is open. On your second pass, you flip every locker divisible by 2, so you close lockers 2, 4, 6, etc. On the third pass, you flip every locker divisible by 3, so locker 3 becomes closed, locker 6 becomes open, etc. You continue this pattern until the millionth pass, flipping only the millionth locker on the last pass. At the end, is the millionth locker open? What do all the open lockers have in common? Why?
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The millionth locker will be open. The only open lockers are the ones that are perfect squares. This is because they are the lockers with an odd number of factors, meaning you flip them an odd number of times. So they all start closed and these are the ones flipped open
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