The triple of
integers satisfies the following system of equations: If is equal to the product , what is the integer formed by the
rightmost two digits of ?
, 2025
Solution
We will begin by making the substitution , , and .
With these substitutions, the three equations become Subtracting Equation
from Equation gives .
Hence, .
Substituting into Equation
gives or .
Substituting into Equation
gives or .
Multiplying both sides of by
(since ) gives , into which we can substitute
to get .
Rearranging gives
which can be factored to get .
If , then either or can be used to deduce that , and if , then we could similarly deduce that
.
Thus, we have that and are and , but we cannot determine the order.
Since and , we conclude that and are and , though we cannot determine with
certainty which is which.
Returning to , we have so .
Regardless of which of and is and which is , we get that . The integer
formed by the rightmost two digits of is .