Problem:
Let , and be the vertices of a regular pentagon centered at . Compute the product of all positive integers such that the equality
must hold for all possible choices of the pentagon.
Proposed by: Daniel Zhu
, 2022
Solution
Solution:
Without loss of generality let the vertices of the pentagon lie on the unit circle. Then, if and , the condition becomes , or , since is an odd function.
Write if for some nonzero constant that we don't care about. Since , we find that
where is defined to be zero if is not an integer in the interval . It is also true that
so
This is periodic with period if and only if all terms with not a multiple of 4 are equal to 0. However, we know that the nonzero terms are exactly the that (1) are multiples of , (2) are of the same parity as , and (3) satisfy . Hence, if is even, the condition is satisfied if and only if (else the term is nonzero), and if is odd, the condition is satisfied if and only if (else the term is nonzero). Our final answer is .