Brain Teaser No : 10

What is the last digit of 746? In other words, what will the remainder be, if 746 is divided by 10?

Don't try to solve this on calculator, you may get the wrong answer. Also, do explain your answer.

Answer

The last digit of 746 is 9.

The powers of any number have a repeating pattern for the last digit. It can be found easily without
performing the entire multiplication of each power.

Let's consider the powers of 7.

Valu
7N Last Digit
e
70 1 1
71 7 7
72 49 9
73 343 3
7 4
2401 1
75 16807 1
11764
76 1
9

Note that there is a repeating pattern of four numbers (1, 7, 9, 3) for the powers of 7. Hence, the last
digit of 744 will be 1, of 745 will be 7 and of 746 will be 9.

Also, there is no need to actually perform the entire multiplication. Start with 1, multiply it by 7, discard
all digits except units and multiply again by 7 and so on.