How many pairs of positive integers are there such that the fraction is reduced to lowest terms and strictly less than 1, and such that the product is equal to (that is, to the product of the first 25 positive integers)?
Pick one
Solution
Solution:
The answer is . If is a multiple of a certain prime , then it must be divisible by the maximum power of dividing (where by we mean the product of the integers from 1 to 25) so that has no factors of (otherwise the fraction would not be reduced to lowest terms). We must therefore count the divisors of such that
a. contains in its factorization some of the prime factors of , each raised to the same power to which it appears in the factorization of and
b. .
Pairing each divisor having property (a) with the divisor , since between the two only the smaller one will have property (b) (given our requirements on the prime factors of , we cannot have ), we obtain that the divisors to be counted will be half of those for which only property (a) is required.
In the factorization of there appear 9 distinct primes: . The divisors with property (a) are therefore , and among these have property (b).