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What is the number?

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Edited by Richard Walker, Saturday 18 July 2026 at 00:14

I found this puzzle and variants of it in many places; a search yields about 5k hits.

A four-digit number which is a perfect square has the form aabb, with two digits repeated. What is this number?

Short and sweet! See the Comments for a solution and explanation. 

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Richard Walker

Solution and explanation

The number has the form aabb, so it equals 1000a+100a+10b+b = 1100a+11b = 11 x (100a+b). We know it is a perfect square and since we see it is a multiple of 11 we can simply square the multiples of 11 up to 99 until we find the only answer, 882 = 7744.