Let n be the smallest positive integer with 4 digits greater than or equal to 2016 that has the following property: there exists a positive integer S such that
S=a+b+c+d+S
where a,b,c,d are, in order, the thousands, hundreds, tens and units digit of n. What is the value of n?
Solution
Solution:
The answer is 2167. First of all, 2167 satisfies the required property with S=2: indeed 2+1+6+7+2=2+1+6+9=2+1+9=2+4=4=2 Let us now show that there are no integers n between 2016 and 2166 that have this property. We begin by showing that S must be less than 4. Indeed, if for contradiction we had S≥4, we would have S(S−1)>9⇒S2>S+9≥S+d⇒S>d+S similarly we would have S2>S+9>d+S+c⇒S>c+d+S, and so on, until we reach the contradiction S>a+b+c+d+S=S. Observe next that, since S is an integer, all the arguments of the square roots must be perfect squares, and since we are looking for a number between 2016 and 2166 we must have a=2 and b=0 or b=1. Moreover we have S>1, because S>a≥1, and from S≤3 we find d+S≤12, from which c+d+S<9+4=13; in the same way, all the arguments of the square roots are less than or equal to 12. In particular, 12≥b+c+d+S=S2−a=S2−2, from which we obtain S<3, that is, S=2. We then have 2≤d+S≤11, and the only two perfect squares in this interval are 4 and 9, which correspond to d=2 and d=7 respectively. Let us treat the two cases separately.
d=2. The same situation just seen for d arises again for c. If c=2 we should have that b+2+2 is a perfect square, but this is true neither for b=0 nor for b=1. If instead c=7,b+7+2 is a perfect square for b=1, which however leads us to 2172>2167.
d=7. In this case c+d+S=c+3 must be a perfect square between 3 and 12, from which c=1 or c=6. In the first case again b+2 is not a perfect square for b=0,1, while for c=6 we obtain that b+3 must be a square, which happens for b=1 and leads to the solution 2167.
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