How would you answer this question. Find the greatest number possible using these digits. 1 3 5 7?

Answer 1

Different ways to experiment:
- Try writing the digits in a different order, e.g. 3571 is greater than 1357.
(Could these digits be rearranged to make an even higher number?)

- Try adding the numbers together e.g. 35 + 71

- Try multiplying the digits in different ways, e.g. 1 x 357, 3 x 517 etc

- Try multiplying the numbers by themselves.

Example of using this method:
2 x 3 = 6
but 23 = 8 (23 means 2 multiplied by itself 3 times)
So we see that multiplying numbers 'with themselves' gives a greater answer than simply multiplying numbers with other numbers

Let's try this method with 1,3,5,7

• 7513 (which means 751 x 751 x 751) = 426,564,751
  
• 3175 is ... a huge number!
  

3751 is possibly the greatest number with the digits in this question.

Workings:
The result of 3751 has 359 digits!
i.e.

2079995016677066850372981010516385195139432445379955858495369328256537
2093317627257441611421498899027320821439897036697587148396474631750097
9204208056247437566321037997877361642116920090225167939103806929630928
2288269873178257886078825558517232416384715642204809589256745644662726
6783499073830363538058695307613757378664939520035256327649649077012817
246848747

(To make it fit neatly on the screen the number has been split and the commas marking the thousands have been omitted)

These are only a few suggestions. Try different ways of using the given numbers. Who knows, you may be able to find an even greater number than the example given above!