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Number theory Difficulty 5.0 AIME Prove it Brazil

Find the number of ways that a positive integer nn can be represented as a sum of one or more consecutive positive integers.

Solution

The sum of kk consecutive integers is (m+1)+(m+2)++(m+k)=k(2m+k+1)2(m+1) + (m+2) + \dots + (m+k) = \frac{k(2m+k+1)}{2}. So we require k(2m+k+1)=2nk(2m+k+1) = 2n. Note that kk and 2m+k+12m+k+1 have opposite parity and that k<2m+k+1k < 2m+k+1.

Now suppose 2n=ab2n = ab with aa odd. Then bb must be even. So aa and bb cannot be equal. Take kk to be the smaller, then put m=ab12m = \frac{|a-b-1|}{2} and we have a solution. So the total number of solutions is just the number of odd factors of 2n2n.

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