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Number theory Difficulty 6.1 National olympiad Prove it Estonia

Find all natural numbers whose last digit is not zero and deleting the first digit of which gives a number exactly 25 times smaller.

Solutions — 2

Solution 1

Let nn be the desired number, and let mm be the number obtained by deleting the first digit. Since the last digit of the product m25m \cdot 25 is not 0, it can only be 5. Since 5255 \cdot 25 has three digits, it cannot be the number nn itself,
so the number mm must have more digits. Consider a digit dd in both nn and mm. Then in the product dd is obtained from multiplying all lower-order digits by 25 and adding the last digit of the number d5d \cdot 5 to the corresponding digit in the product. If dd is even then the corresponding digit in the product of lower order digits by 25 is dd, i.e. an even number, while in the case of odd dd, it is d5d - 5 or d+5d + 5, i.e. again an even number.
Since the tens digit of 5255 \cdot 25 is 2, the tens digit of nn and mm must be either 2 or 7. If it is 2 and mm does not have more digits, then n=2525=625n = 25 \cdot 25 = 625 which satisfies the conditions of the problem. If there are more digits in the number mm, then the hundreds digit of the numbers mm and nn must be 6 or 1, because the hundreds digit of the intermediate result of multiplying lower-order numbers is 6. Now nn cannot be 62525625 \cdot 25 because the product has 5 digits. Since the thousands digit 5 of this product is odd, it is not possible to add more digits to the number mm. If the hundreds digit is 1 then we get the possibility m=125m = 125 and n=3125n = 3125, which satisfies the conditions of the problem, and since the thousands digit in this number is odd, it is not possible to add more digits to the number mm here either.
If the tens digit of mm and nn is 7, then nn cannot be 752575 \cdot 25 because the product has 4 digits. Since the hundreds digit of 752575 \cdot 25 is 8, the hundreds digit of mm can be 8 or 3. Again nn cannot be 87525875 \cdot 25 because the product has 5 digits, and since the thousands digit 1 of the product is odd, it is not possible to add more digits to the number mm. If the hundreds digit of mm is 3 we get m=375m = 375 and n=9375n = 9375, which satisfies the conditions of the problem. Since the thousands digit of the product is odd, it is not possible to add more digits to the number mm here either.
Thus only 625, 3125 and 9375 satisfy the conditions of the problem.

Solution 2

Let nn be the desired number. Let the first digit of this number be aa and the number formed from the remaining digits be mm, with the number mm having kk digits. Then n=10ka+m=25mn = 10^k a + m = 25m, implying 10ka=24m10^k a = 24m. Thus, the number 10ka=2k5ka10^k a = 2^k 5^k a is divisible by the number 24. Consequently, the number 2k5ka2^k 5^k a must be divisible by the numbers 232^3 and 33. Since the number 2k5k2^k 5^k is not divisible by 3, the number aa must be divisible by 3, which leaves the possibilities a=3,a=6a = 3, a = 6 and a=9a = 9.
* If a=3a = 3, then 2k5k2^k 5^k must be divisible by 232^3. Therefore k3k \ge 3 and we get m=10ka24=300010k324=12510k3m = \frac{10^k a}{2^4} = \frac{3000 \cdot 10^{k-3}}{2^4} = 125 \cdot 10^{k-3}. Since last digit of mm is not zero, we have m=125m = 125, whence n=3125n = 3125.
* If a=6a = 6, then 2k5k2^k 5^k must be divisible by 222^2. Therefore k2k \ge 2 and we get m=10ka24=60010k224=2510k2m = \frac{10^k a}{2^4} = \frac{600 \cdot 10^{k-2}}{2^4} = 25 \cdot 10^{k-2}. Since the last digit is not zero, we have m=25m = 25, whence n=625n = 625.
* If a=9a = 9, then 2k5k2^k 5^k must be divisible by 232^3. Therefore k3k \ge 3 and we get m=10ka24=900010k324=37510k3m = \frac{10^k a}{2^4} = \frac{9000 \cdot 10^{k-3}}{2^4} = 375 \cdot 10^{k-3}. Since the last digit of mm is not zero, we have m=375m = 375, whence n=9375n = 9375.

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