Jay was an old friend of Rakesh and was coming to visit him from a small town. Jay came over late. When Rakesh asked him the reason, Jay told him that when he was coming to the city in the bus, he had placed his luggage under his seat. While getting off, he had forgotten to take back the luggage and by the time he had realized, the bus had left. So he went to a police station to report about it, which took him time. Rakesh inquired what happened next, to which Jay replied that he does not remember the bus number but there was a certain peculiarity about it – the bus number was a perfect square and when turned upside down, then it was also a perfect square! Jay requested his friend Rakesh to help him.
Rakesh quickly phoned the bus company and came to know they had only 500 buses numbered from 1 to 500. Using this information, Rakesh deduced the bus number within a minute.
Can you tell what was the number?
Bus number was 196.
We are aware that only the digits 0, 1, 6, 8 and 9 can be read as a digit when they are reversed. When placed upside down, the numbers 0, 1, and 8 remain unchanged. However, the numbers 6 and 9 change. Therefore, the bus could have the following possible numbers: 9, 16, 81, 100, 169, and 196. Because 961 is the perfect square of 31, only number 196 among these can be turned over into a perfect square. 196 is the bus number as a result.