+217 You have a total supply of $1000$ pieces of candy, and an empty vat. You also have a machine that can add exactly $52$ pieces of candy per scoop to the vat, and another machine that can remove exactly $39$ pieces of candy with a different scoop from the vat. When these two machines are done, there is only one piece of candy left in the vat. What is the smallest possible number of times the the first machine added candy to the vat?
+1257
You have a total supply of $1000$ pieces of candy, and an empty vat. You also have a machine that can add exactly $52$ pieces of candy per scoop to the vat, and another machine that can remove exactly $39$ pieces of candy with a different scoop from the vat. When these two machines are done, there is only one piece of candy left in the vat. What is the smallest possible number of times the the first machine added candy to the vat?
Both 52 and 39 are multiples of 13. No matter how many times you add X • (4 • 13) and subtract Y • (3 • 13) the remainder will never get "out of synch" so to speak. The number of pieces left will always be a multiple of 13, including zero.
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