What comes next?5, 3, 42, 86, 15, 24, 25, 168, 2, 4, ?

[Moo Of Doom]

What comes next?

5, 3, 42, 86, 15, 24, 25, 168, 2, 4, ?

 

[ArielGenesis]

6 could it be

 

[Moo Of Doom]

Nope, not 6.

Larger.

 

[BicycleTree]

Answer: 35
- - - - - - - -

 

[Moo Of Doom]

Good job, Bicycle Tree! You're good.

 

[James R]

Is anybody going to explain?

 

[BicycleTree]

Ok. The sequence is a palindrome.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

In that case, 3 would serve as well (until moo added the extra condition).

 

[ArielGenesis]

what palindrome suppose to mean ?

 

[Rahmuss]

Man... darn... I saw it right after I looked at BicycleTree's response... Oh well.

what palindrome suppose to mean ?

Palindrome is the same backwards as it is forwards... they just have the commas in strange places.

 

[NateTG]

But there's an infinite number of options that makes it a palindrome. For example:
42861524251682435
142861524251682435
1142861524251682435
11142861524251682435
111142861524251682435
1111142861524251682435

And so on.

 

[primal schemer]

If you take the 4 (from the 24) as the middle of the sequence, then the numbers before and after are the same. So directly before/after the 4 there is a 2 then a 5 then a 1 then a 6 and then an 8 and so on. I would have thought that the answer could have also been:
'3, 5' (but then there would be more commas on the right of the 4)

PS

 

[ArielGenesis]

so the trick is just right at the comma. i got it. thanks all