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What number comes next?

Bomb#20

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In honor of today's date, what's the next number in the sequence 6, 12, 25?
 
6 12 25




The differences are 6 13, not enough terms for a difference table.

12 is 2*6 + 0, 25 is 4*6 + 1. Then 8*6 + 2 = 50.

(2^n * 6) + (n - 1) n = 1,2,3....

6 12 25 50




If it is a trick question then it is 6 12 25 6 13 25 6 14 25 ..
 
Last edited:
6 12 25 ?

  • I'll guess the intended solution is 20. Because 6, 12, 25, 20 give today's date as month, day, year, century. Am I the only one that despises America's reversal of month and day in what would otherwise be a logically ordered sequence? What countries other than USA have acquiesced to this inanity?
  • 52 (followed by 64) is plausible if this is an ordered list of cardinalities associated with games: There are SIX die faces, TWELVE goal spots in Shut-the-Box (and 12 white checkers pieces, and 12 zodiac signs), 25 slots on a Bingo card (or letters in a certain word game), and 52 cards in a standard deck.
  • Less likely is 51, which matches several possibilities including 1,3,6,12,25,51,103,... -- the floors of the golden geometric sequence with ratio 2: 1.618, 3.236, 6.472, 12.944, 25.888, 51.777.
  • A dark-horse candidate is 85 (see https://oeis.org/A034875 "1, 2, 6, 12, 25, 85, 194, 590, 1695, 4879, 19077, 83994, 167988, 1041780, ... Smallest integer not the sum of powers of some earlier terms."
 
As it is a date the next number in the sequence is 6,13, 25. I just noticed steve_bank has already suggested this.
Swammerdami - I think most non-Americans find the American way of doing the date ridiculous.
 
As it is a date the next number in the sequence is 6,13, 25. I just noticed steve_bank has already suggested this.
Swammerdami - I think most non-Americans find the American way of doing the date ridiculous.
A lot of americans find the american way of doing the date ridiculous.

I long ago started date-stamping files as YYYYMMDD, that way they show up in the correct order.
 
As it is a date the next numberpuzzle in the sequence is 6,13, 25. I just noticed steve_bank has already suggested this.
FIFY. Come back tomorrow. :devil:
It has been June 13th for almost five hours here...
Hmm. Some say Australia is a hoax.




:rimshot:
 
6 12 25 ?

I'll guess the intended solution is 20. Because 6, 12, 25, 20 give today's date as month, day, year, century. Am I the only one that despises America's reversal of month and day in what would otherwise be a logically ordered sequence? What countries other than USA have acquiesced to this inanity?
Are you suggesting 12, 6, 25, 20 is a logically ordered anity? You're still mixing endianness, just switching in different places. Logical ordering would at least be 21, 60, 5202. Better would be 1749711600 -- that's SI. :biggrina:

  • 52 (followed by 64) is plausible if this is an ordered list of cardinalities associated with games: There are SIX die faces, TWELVE goal spots in Shut-the-Box (and 12 white checkers pieces, and 12 zodiac signs), 25 slots on a Bingo card (or letters in a certain word game), and 52 cards in a standard deck.
  • Less likely is 51, which matches several possibilities including 1,3,6,12,25,51,103,... -- the floors of the golden geometric sequence with ratio 2: 1.618, 3.236, 6.472, 12.944, 25.888, 51.777.
  • A dark-horse candidate is 85 (see https://oeis.org/A034875 "1, 2, 6, 12, 25, 85, 194, 590, 1695, 4879, 19077, 83994, 167988, 1041780, ... Smallest integer not the sum of powers of some earlier terms."
Of course there are infinitely many solutions to this sort of problem; but the intent was for a mathematical pattern, ideally one that's convincingly better than alternatives -- it should cry out that it's not just an answer, but The Answer. So good theories, all of you, but the best solution is that 6, 12, and 25 are the products of successive integers with successive prime numbers: 3 * 2, 4 * 3, 5 * 5. :wink:

New problem: what number comes next after 6, 13, 25?
 
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