Away Sep 07 - 17

[Richard Guy]

It's important to know the context in such things.
As we all know, the next term can always be anything.

If the context was quadratic functions, then I make
the next term of A063941 to be 2965361.

If the context was factoring integers, then I
suggest that the initial 17 is a typo, and the sequence
should be  663 = 3 * 13 * 17,
         25857 = 3^2 * 13^2 * 17
       1008423 = 3^3 * 13^3 * 17
      39328497 = 3^4 * 13^4 * 17

Simplest explanation (?):  Same typo and context is
GPs (for non-Brits, that's Geometric Progressions,
not General Practitioners)

I'm still working on A063914.  Since it's grade 5,
it depends even more on context, and may simply be
following some (geomtrical?) pattern on a page of
numbers.  I don't suppose I'll get much credit for
observing that the first five are Fibs and the next
two are Lucas numbers.      R.

On Wed, 5 Sep 2001, N. J. A. Sloane wrote:

> I will be away from email during that period.
> 
> Apologies for such a trivial message, but otherwise I've found
> that people complain if the database isn't updated every few days.
> 
> As long as I'm sending this out, let me mention two recent unsolved
> problems, both found in school books:  Apparently both of them say
> "Find the next term in ..."
> 
> %I A063941
> %S A063941 17663,25857,1008423
> %N A063941 From a 9-th grade algebra book. Explanation unknown.
> %D A063941 Mervine Edwards and Siegfried Haenisch, New Views in Algebra, 1: An Integrated Approach, Educational Design, Inc, 1999 (ISBN #0-87694-578-7); p. 9, #16.
> %K A063941 nonn,unkn,new
> %O A063941 0,1
> %A A063941 Deborah Florez (deborahf at bcn.net), Sep 01 2001
> 
> %I A063914
> %S A063914 2,3,5,5,8,7,11
> %N A063914 A problem in a 5th grade workbook. Explanation unknown.
> %D A063914 D. Dolan, J. Williamson, and M. Muri, Mathematics Activities for Elementary School Teachers: A Problem Solving Approach, Addison Wesley Longman, Inc., NY, Fourth Edition (ISBN 0-201-61321-2), Chapter 1, Activity 2, #9.
> %K A063914 nonn,unkn,new
> %O A063914 1,1
> %A A063914 Nancy Shaffer (nancys at rose.net), Aug 30 2001
> 
> 
> NJAS
>