What is the smallest number which is both a cube and a square?
Solution:
Both 0 and 1 are technically both cubes and squares. They are known as self cubes and self squares, meaning that they are themselves squared and themselves cubed 02 = 0, 03 = 0, 12 = 1, 13 = 1.
The next smallest number which is both a square and a cube is 64 (43 and 82).
The easiest way to solve this problem is to make a list of cubes and check each to see whether it is also a square. Because the solution is the third whole number greater than 1 it does not take a long time.