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I recently took a test asking me what the "digits number" of 17 was. It also asked me this same question for a number like 18471872717171717. What does that mean?

DeepDeadpool
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  • No idea - I don't think it is a non-standard term. Can you tell us what class this was in? – Thomas Andrews Aug 15 '16 at 14:17
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    could it possible mean the number of digits? Then it is $2$ for $17$ and $17$ for the second number – gt6989b Aug 15 '16 at 14:17
  • Never heard that phrase before. As a wild guess: sum of the digits? Perhaps iterated sum of the digits? – lulu Aug 15 '16 at 14:17
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    I also never heard that phrase, but my first case is that is a garbled version of "units digit" -- that is, the digit in the "Ones" place, which for both numbers would be 7. – mweiss Aug 15 '16 at 14:21
  • As the comments make clear, this is not a standard term. Of course your professor might well have defined it in class (or on the exam itself). But I think you'll need to get clarity from whomever set the exam. – lulu Aug 15 '16 at 14:29
  • Any chance it was the sum of digits? – quid Aug 15 '16 at 14:31
  • This was a GRE question, and I don't know the answer. I'm going to retake it and since I'd never heard this term before, I figured it was important I learn it. I'll assume they meant units digit next time. If they don't specifically say that, then I'll flip a coin between number of digits and sum of all digits. – DeepDeadpool Aug 15 '16 at 14:48
  • I think that I have once or twice seen the term used to mean the least significant digit of an integer, also known as the units’ digit. – Brian M. Scott Aug 15 '16 at 17:14

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