August 17 2023

Can you find three consecutive even numbers that...

...total 85,008 when multiplied together?

Puzzle Copyright © Kevin Stone

Workings

Hint: Try starting with the cube root of the number.

Answer: 42, 44, and 46.

Reasoning
As we require 3 numbers that are multiplied together, we can start with the cube root of 85,008 = 43.9696761...

We can check that 44 divides 85,008 exactly: 85,008 ÷ 44 = 1,932, which means that 44 is likely to be one of the numbers.

And as we know that we need consecutive even numbers we soon find 42 and 46 as the remaining numbers.

Double Checking
42 x 44 x 46 = 85,008.

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