The next number

[memory man]

What should the last number in this sequence be?

8,18,11,15,5,4,14,9,19,1,17,6,16, 10, 13, 3, 12, *

[aphrodite]

The answer is 2

[Cactuslil]

20

[memory man]

The answer is 2

Explain how you got that answer please.

20

Explain how you got that answer please.

[Cactuslil]

1 number in between,then 2 numbers, then 3 etc . 8+3,11+3 etc.

[aphrodite]

I could see straightaway that the numbers were 1 – 19 but the nos. 2 and 7 were missing so the last number had to be one of these two. I then saw that the numbers were written alphabetically but the number 7 was missing from the ‘s’ sequence. The No. 2 therefore had to be the final number in the ‘t’ sequence.

What I don’t understand is why the number 7 was not included in the sequence as you had written it?

I hope this makes sense..

[memory man]

FAO Aphrodite.

I'm not sure why number 7 was not included.
I just copied it from a source.

You are correct with your reasoning and the answer is two.

[Dominic]

Surely, CactusLil is inadvertently correct too? The next number is far more likely to have been 20 than 2. More people are going to want the numbers 1 to 20 sorted alphabetically than 1 to 19.

Admitedly, not many more, but 20 would come before 2.

Actually, thinking about it, you could argue for 30 as being the next number. No higher than that though, as they would have already appeared on the list.