Dodging Predators With Primes
In the eastern United States, there is a species of cicada that broods every 17 years. The life cycles of three predators that eat cicadas are 2, 3, and 4 years. If the species of cicada experienced a devastating population drop in the year 2013 (while they brood), and the predators rarely eat each other, which future year would the cicadas experience another reproductive disaster?
The reproductive disaster is when all three predators hunt the cicadas at once.
The answer is 2217.
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1 solution
This problem is very simple because the disastrous year 2013 is given. All we have to do is add the l c m ( 2 , 3 , 4 , 1 7 ) to 2013.