Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 7.6 National Olympiad, round 2 Prove it Hong Kong

Find an integral solution of the equation
x1!+x2!+x3!++x10!=2019. \left\lfloor \frac{x}{1!} \right\rfloor + \left\lfloor \frac{x}{2!} \right\rfloor + \left\lfloor \frac{x}{3!} \right\rfloor + \cdots + \left\lfloor \frac{x}{10!} \right\rfloor = 2019.
(Note u\lfloor u \rfloor stands for the greatest integer less than or equal to uu.)

Solution

The answer is 20192019.
Clearly, the answer should not be an integer greater than 20182018. Hence we may remove the last 44 terms on the left-hand side of the equation.

Next, we may assume that x=a(6!)+b(5!)+c(4!)+d(3!)+e(2!)+f(1!)x = a(6!) + b(5!) + c(4!) + d(3!) + e(2!) + f(1!), where a,b,c,d,e,fa, b, c, d, e, f are nonnegative integers and a6,b5,c4,d3,e2,f1a \le 6, b \le 5, c \le 4, d \le 3, e \le 2, f \le 1.
Substituting into the original equation gives
1237a+206b+41c+10d+3e+f=2019. 1237a + 206b + 41c + 10d + 3e + f = 2019.
Since 206b+41c+10d+3e+f1231206b + 41c + 10d + 3e + f \le 1231, we have 7881237a2019788 \le 1237a \le 2019. This gives a=1a = 1. Then we have
206b+41c+10d+3e+f=782. 206b + 41c + 10d + 3e + f = 782.
Similarly, we find that b=3,c=4,d=e=f=0b = 3, c = 4, d = e = f = 0. Hence,
x=1(6!)+3(5!)+4(4!)=1176 x = 1(6!) + 3(5!) + 4(4!) = 1176
is the only solution.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.