This is another great Critical Thinking Puzzle and challenge to tease your brain and help you develop your creative thinking!
Challenge:
The sum of more than two consecutive integers is 17. What is the least number of the integers?
A- 3
B- 16
C- 17
D- 24
E- 28
The Absolute Best Book to challenge your Smart Student!
The correct answer is C.
The sum of some consecutive integers is 17. Since, 17 is a prime number, then, we cannot find any positive consecutive integers whose sum is 17. Why?
Therefore, we need to consider negative numbers. We know that the sum of two consecutive positive numbers can be 17. Those numbers are 8 and 9.
We are looking for consecutive integers. The sum of negative and positive of a number is zero. For example, the sum of 1 and -1 is 0, or the sum of 2 and -2 is 0.
We found 8 and 9. The other numbers are:
9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, -1, -2, -3, -4, -5, -6, -7
The sum of above numbers is 17. Thus, the least number of the integers is 17.
