Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 5.4 AIME, harder Prove it Italy

Problem:

The rich Croesus buys 88 identical vases. The price of each of them, expressed in drachmas, is a whole number (the same for all 88 vases). We know that Croesus pays a total of a1211ba1211b drachmas, where a,ba, b are digits to be determined (which may or may not be distinct). How many drachmas does a single vase cost?

Solution

Solution:

The answer is 1274. Notice that the number a1211ba1211b must be divisible by 88, so it must be divisible by both 11 and by 8. We know that a number is divisible by 8 if and only if its last 3 digits are, so 11b11b must be divisible by 8. Notice that 814=1128 \cdot 14 = 112 is the only number of the form 11b11b divisible by 8, so b=2b = 2 and a12112a12112 is divisible by 8 for every choice of aa. The divisibility criterion for 11 tells us that the difference between the sum of the digits in even position and that of the digits in odd position must be a multiple of 11, that is, that (2+1+1)(1+2+a)=1a(2+1+1)-(1+2+a) = 1-a must be divisible by 11. Since aa is a digit, hence between 0 and 9, this condition is satisfied only for a=1a = 1. The solution is therefore 11211288=1274\frac{112112}{88} = 1274.

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