Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 5.1 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:

Ten positive integers are arranged around a circle. Each number is one more than the greatest common divisor of its two neighbors. What is the sum of the ten numbers?

Solution

Solution:

First note that all the integers must be at least 22, because the greatest common divisor of any two positive integers is at least 11. Let nn be the largest integer in the circle. The greatest common divisor of its two neighbors is n1n-1. Therefore, each of the two neighbors is at least n1n-1 but at most nn, so since n1nn-1 \nmid n for n12n-1 \geq 2, they must both be equal to n1n-1.

Let mm be one of the numbers on the other side of n1n-1 from nn. Then gcd(n,m)=n2\operatorname{gcd}(n, m) = n-2. Since n20n-2 \geq 0, n2nn-2 \mid n only for n=3n=3 or 44.

If n=3n=3, each number must be 22 or 33, and it is easy to check that there is no solution.

If n=4n=4, then it is again not hard to find that there is a unique solution up to rotation, namely 4 3 2 2 3 4 3 2 2 34\ 3\ 2\ 2\ 3\ 4\ 3\ 2\ 2\ 3. The only possible sum is therefore 2828.

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