The Puzzle
The sequence of triangle numbers is generated by adding the natural numbers. So the 7th triangle number would be 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 = 28. The first ten terms would be:
1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, 28, 36, 45, 55, ...
Let us list the factors of the first seven triangle numbers:
- 1: 1
- 3: 1,3
- 6: 1,2,3,6
- 10: 1,2,5,10
- 15: 1,3,5,15
- 21: 1,3,7,21
- 28: 1,2,4,7,14,28
We can see that 28 is the first triangle number to have over five divisors.
Define f(i,j) to be the jth digit of the first triangular number to have over i divisors, so:
- f(5,2) = 8,
- f(100,3) = 9.
To find this cache, first find:
- f(500,3), f(1000,3), f(1000,4), f(1000,6), f(1000,1), f(1000,2), f(1000,7);
- f(1500,9), f(1500,3), f(1500,5), f(1500,10), f(1500,7).