The answer is 2026 but what is the question

Learners can be creative mathematicians; they can be people who have their own mathematical ideas.

What different questions about 2026 can you find to answer? Perhaps you can make up an easy question, a harder one and a very hard one. Compare your questions with other people. For example you might ask:

1. Do you find anything interesting if you reverse the digits of 2026 and add the two numbers together?
2. Is it correct to say “twenty twenty-six” or should we say “two thousand and twenty-six” or are both correct?  Why?
3. People say “twenty twenty-six” so do the 2 twenties mean – 20 thousands, 20 hundreds, 20 tens or 20 units?
4. Find the prime factors of 2026 and write 2026 as a product of its prime factors. 
5. Here is the factor bug for 18. The antennae show 1 × 18 = 18. The pairs of legs show and 2 × 9 = 18 and 3 × 6 = 18. For square numbers instead of a pair of legs the bug has a tail. For example the 16-bug has a tail for 4. Factor bugs for other numbers can have more legs. How many legs for 2026? Does it have a tail?
6. 2026 is the sum of two squares 45² + 1². Check it out.
7. 2026 is the sum of 3 squares. If one is 37², can you find the other two? How many other ways of writing 2026 as the sum of 3 squares can you find if you ask AI?
8. Investigate whether the number 2026 is happy or sad. A happy number is a positive integer that, when replaced by the sum of the squares of its digits, and this process is repeated, the number chain eventually reaches 1. If the process results in an endless cycle without ever reaching 1, the number is considered unhappy or sad. For example 79 and 97 are happy numbers because 79 → 130 → 10 → 1 and 4 is a sad number because  4 → 16 → 37 → 58 →  89 → 145 → 42 → 20 → 4 and this cycle of 8 numbers repeats over and over again indefinitely. Check out the numbers 2 and 3. Are they happy or sad?
9. What is 2026 written in Roman Numerals?
10. What is the number 2026 written as a binary number?
11. What interesting facts can you find about the year that you were born?

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