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Owlet puzzle #34

Released Saturday, August 8, 2026 UTC

65536
the answer for puzzle #34

The five clues

  1. A five-digit multiple of one thousand twenty-four.
  2. A five-digit power of two beyond the byte range.
  3. Simultaneously 2ᵃ, 4ᵇ, 16ᶜ, and 256ᵈ for the natural exponents.
  4. The number of distinct 16-bit unsigned integers, one for each possible value from 0 to 65535.
  5. The knot in every C programmer's stomach when a short overflows.

Backstory

65536 = 2¹⁶ counts the range of an unsigned 16-bit integer — every short int in the world lives here. It equals 2^(2^4), a tower of twos: 2^2^2^2. Also the smallest number whose only prime factor is 2 that exceeds 40000.

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