OT Last week's CarTalk puzzler

[Charles Hartman]

On Nov 23, 2005, at 6:07 PM, Jim Hurley wrote:

>
> All those numbers are called perfect squares. And only they have an  
> odd number of factors, because one of the factors is the square  
> root of the number in question. For example, nine has three  
> factors, 1 and 9 and 3.  [I confess, I can't see how this follows.  
> Jim]


Well, because 9 has four factors -- 1, 3, 3, and 9 -- two of which  
are assigned to the same chain-puller, who however only pulls the  
chain once.

Charles