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Number theory Difficulty 7.8 National olympiad, round 2 Prove it Bulgaria

Let pp and 4p+14p+1 be two primes such that p>109p > 10^9. Prove that the decimal representation of the number 14p+1\frac{1}{4p+1} contains every digit from 0 to 9.

Solution

Let q=4p+1q = 4p+1 and aba \circ b be the remainder of aa upon division by bb. It suffices to show that the last digits of the numbers 10kq10^k \circ q cover all digits from 0 to 9. Indeed, since qq and 1010 are coprime, that would mean that all digits from 0 to 9 occur among the last digits of the numbers 10kq\lfloor \frac{10^k}{q} \rfloor – and those are the same as the digits in the decimal representation of 1q\frac{1}{q}.

Let SS be the set of all nonzero biquadratic residues modulo qq, i.e., the set of all 0<t<q0 < t < q such that the congruence x4tx^4 \equiv t has a solution modulo qq. Then SS has exactly pp elements. Indeed, since 1-1 is a quadratic residue modulo qq, the 2p2p nonzero quadratic residues modulo qq can be grouped in pairs of the kind {s,s}\{s, -s\}, and among their squares – which are precisely the biquadratic residues – there are precisely pp distinct ones.

We will show that every element of SS has the form 10kq10^k \circ q for some kk. Indeed, let dd be the index of qq modulo 1010. Since dφ(q)=4pd \mid \varphi(q) = 4p, we have d=pd = p, d=2pd = 2p, or d=4pd = 4p.

Consider the case d=pd = p first. Let 0k<p0 \le k < p; then there is a 0j30 \le j \le 3 such that k+jqk + jq is a multiple of 44 and, therefore, the number 10k[10k+jq4]4(modq)10^k \equiv [10^{\frac{k+jq}{4}}]^4 \pmod{q} is a biquadratic residue. Since the numbers 10kq10^k \circ q for 0k<p0 \le k < p are pairwise distinct and all of them are biquadratic residues, they must coincide with the elements of SS, as needed.

The cases d=2pd = 2p and d=4pd = 4p are treated analogously.

Let, then, uu be an arbitrary digit. Let 0j30 \le j \le 3 be such that u+jqu + jq ends in 00, 11, 55, or 66. Since q>109q > 10^9, we have (j+1)q4u+jq4>6\sqrt[4]{-(j+1)q} - \sqrt[4]{u+jq} > 6. It follows that the interval [u+jq,(j+1)q)[u+jq, (j+1)q) contains at least six fourth powers. Therefore, it contains at least one fourth power x4x^4 that ends in the same digit as u+jqu+jq. Let s=x4qs = x^4 \circ q; then x4=s+jqx^4 = s + jq and 10x4(u+jq)=su10 \mid x^4 - (u+jq) = s - u, i.e., ss ends in uu, as needed.

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