Question

find the next number 1_8:9_?​

Answer 1

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What is the next number in the following sequence: 1, 8, 9, 8, 2, 12, 3, 16, 3, 4, 6, _?

Stabilize handhelp shots. Cute is tough to capture.

I started looking at this and it honestly looks like a random bunch of numbers (which actually could be) but I found the following pattern fits the criteria:

If we consider the list of numbers:

1, 8, 9, 8, 2, 12, 3, 16, 3, 4, 6

Lets first notice this interesting fact:

1, 8, 9, 8, 2, 12, 3, 16, 3, 4, 6

It may be interesting to notice that not the next number, but rather the number after this would be a 4. This is beside the point though.

So I took this as a hint as to finding the number that I was initially attempting to find.

Lets lau

1 8 9 8

2 12 3 16

3 4 6 X

We'll call these row 1, 2, 3 and columns A, B, C, and D. I believe that they may go:

columnA is: row1+row2=row3

columnB is: -row1+row2=row3

columnC is: row1-row2=row3

So I believe that it is natural to say either

columnD is: row1+row2=row3 (again)

So X=+/-24

OR

columnD is: row1+row2=-row3

I also have another possibility...

Looking again at the numbers:

1 8 9 8

2 12 3 16

3 4 6 X

We can we write the other columns in terms of dividing them by 1-4 respectively. This yields:

(1)1 (2)4 (3)3 (4)2

(1)2 (2)6 (3)1 (4)4

(1)3 (2)2 (3)2 X

We then may rewrite this without the matrix of 1-4

1 4 3 2

2 6 1 4

3 2 2 X

We could go in all different directions here such as, would could see that adding these up in each column gives 6, 12, 6, and we'd guess the next should be 12 so X=24