Easy sequence or?

1. Jan 14, 2006

TSN79

I found this on another forum, and no one has figured it out there yet so I thought I could ask here too. It's said that many "smart" guys don't get it, but that many high school students do...

61 52 ?? 94 45

Any suggestions? Apparently the second digit increases by one every step, but I'm not sure it means anything. Could just be a coincident.

2. Jan 14, 2006

arildno

Are you ABSOLUTELY sure that the last number is 45 and not 46?
(In that case, the middle term is real easy to figure out)

3. Jan 14, 2006

TSN79

That quickly became an issue at the other forum too, but the thread starter has not stated that 45 (forty five) is wrong.

4. Jan 14, 2006

arildno

Hmm..has he said outright that 45 is, indeed, correct?

5. Jan 14, 2006

TSN79

No, but he has posted several times since the issue came up, so I suppose he would've said something if it was wrong. Or maybe he just likes to see people struggle to no prevail...

6. Jan 14, 2006

Tide

That's actually kind of funny. Here's another one for you:

1 2 3 ?? 5 6 $\pi$

Find the missing number. ;)

7. Jan 15, 2006

HallsofIvy

Staff Emeritus
"Smart" guys would recognize that there are an infinite number of perfectly reasonable ways to produce a sequence of 5 numbers!

8. Jan 15, 2006

shmoe

These sort of things can be very silly. I think it was in the puzzle forum here (perhaps not), someone posted a "find the next number in the sequence" and it turned out to be the sequence of bus or train stops along some specific route in some specific city. Tthis high school reference suggests it's some sequence that high school students (possibly in a very localized area) see often. Though perhaps not, it could really be anything-here's another one, what's next:

2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, ??

I should warn anyone who tries to solve this that I've been thinking about the polynomial 15-437/15*x+91/4*x^2-187/24*x^3+5/4*x^4-3/40*x^5 quite alot lately.

9. Jan 16, 2006

arildno

And with good reason, too!
The zeroes of that polynomial is so beautifully placed along the real line.
(It was that feature you have pondered over, right?)