Seven thieves steal a certain number of diamonds. On the way back home they all decide to take a nap under a tree. While the others are asleep, two of the thieves wake up and decide to divide the loot amongst themselves to get one diamond remaining. By that time the third woke up and demands for an equal share too! So, the three equally divide the diamonds amongst themselves to get two diamonds remaining. then the 4th thief comes, remainder is then 3. with the 5th and 6th, we get 4 and 5 diamonds remaining. Finally, when the seventh wakes up they were able to equally divide the loot amongst themselves. What is the minimum number of diamonds they stole?
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"How many diamonds?" is the exact same question, which is dupe closed to this question. Some more powerful users might want to decide. – justhalf Feb 09 '24 at 05:09
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@justhalf none of those questions have the remainder grow as the number of people grows. They all have remainders of exactly 1 for the intermediate divisions. – bobble Feb 09 '24 at 05:53
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@bobble, ah, right. So my original dupe target is the best already then. – justhalf Feb 09 '24 at 06:47
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@bobble switching the remainder from 1 to -1 doesn't change the problem all that much. (Though I guess getting from here to there is not a bad puzzle in itself.) – Bass Feb 09 '24 at 08:14