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Cesenatico Gara Individuale

Algebra Difficulty 4.7 AIME Prove it Italy

Problem:

Determine all three-digit positive integers that are equal to 34 times the sum of their digits.

Solution

Solution:

The required integers are 102, 204, 306, 408.
Indeed, let us denote by a,b,ca, b, c, respectively, the hundreds digit, the tens digit, the units digit of a 3-digit integer. The given condition then translates into 100a+10b+c=34(a+b+c)100 a+10 b+c=34(a+b+c), from which, after simple algebraic steps, we obtain 11(2a−c)=8b11(2 a-c)=8 b.
From this it follows that bb must be a multiple of 11, but since 0≤b≤90 \leq b \leq 9, the only possibility is that b=0b=0, and consequently also 2a=c2 a=c. Substituting for cc the values 1,2,3,41,2,3,4 one obtains the 4 integers listed above, which one easily verifies are indeed solutions of the problem. For c=0c=0 or c≥5c \geq 5, on the other hand, no 3-digit integers are obtained.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement translated into English from it; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.