Maths puzzle

[gardenmad]

Help! If a line of numbers is five numbers long, minus a line four digits long, and the answer is 33 ,333, what are the top numbers and what are the bottom numbers? The digits have to be chosen from 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. The top number has a four in it and the bottom number has a seven. How do I calculate this, please? I am wasting hours!

[dr b]

do all 9 digits have to be used only once, or can the answer repeat a digit?

[sedge47]

I must be missing something here, because it looks like there could be hundreds of possible answers, e.g.
40,444 - 7,111 = 33,333

[grasscarp]

Using each number once
41286 - 7953 = 33333

[factor-fiction]

Also:
41268-7935

[gardenmad]

Thank you so much Grasscarp and Factor 30 - I am amazed and ashamed that I could not do it - how did you? I really need to know in case I have to do it again, Lord forbid... Did you just put numbers down and take them away until you got the answer? I was doing that, it took hours.......

Thank you both very much again.

[grasscarp]

I am going to be very honest here. I started doing lots of calculations and never quite getting there. Very nearly but not quite. Then I thought that I was wasting too much of a beautiful sunny Sunday and googled "33,333". Bingo on another website someone had put this question and answer, so this one is doing the rounds. Hope Factor can tell you how to do it for yourself!

[gardenmad]

That's exactly what I was doing on Saturday evening - it really was time wasting, but now I will google your website and find out for myself. My daughter asked me the question, my sister was mystified too, we were all telephoning one another across the country but now we can all calm down and do the crossword! Thank you very much again.

[factor-fiction]

the 5 digit number can't begin with a 3 as there aren't any possible permutations of pairs of digits that each differ by 3 .

So try 4 next as the first digit of the 5 digit number. (We know number can't start with 5 because that would give a number >50000 and any 4 digit number we subtract fro it would give an answer of over 40,000)

In the units columns we can't have 7,4 or 4,1 because the 4 has gone. So that leaves 9,6 or 8,5 or 6,3 or 5,2.

Tried 8, 5 in units column. Then tried 6,3 in Tens column.

That left 1,2,7 9. No differences of 3 existed but as 12-9 is 3 I knew one column could have 2,9 as the pair (knowing I'd have to borrow a 10 to make the 2 into 12).

So tried 2,9 as the pair in the HUNDREDS column.

That left 1 and 7 for the thousands column. And that all worked out.

Bit of trial and error so there may be other solutions- in fact grascarp found another.

[grasscarp]

Factor30 I am exhausted just reading that. You are in another league altogether. Well done.....