Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /19 of 104

Number theory Difficulty 5.2 AIME, harder Prove it Bulgaria

Problem:
Find all odd prime numbers pp which divide the number 1p1+2p1++2004p11^{p-1}+2^{p-1}+\cdots+2004^{p-1}.

Solution

Solution:
Note that kp10(modp)k^{p-1} \equiv 0 \pmod{p} if pp divides kk and kp11(modp)k^{p-1} \equiv 1 \pmod{p} otherwise (by Fermat's little theorem). Then
01p1+2p1++2004p10[2004p]+1(2004[2004p])(modp) 0 \equiv 1^{p-1}+2^{p-1}+\cdots+2004^{p-1} \equiv 0 \cdot\left[\frac{2004}{p}\right]+1 \cdot\left(2004-\left[\frac{2004}{p}\right]\right) \pmod{p}
which implies
2004[2004p](modp) 2004 \equiv \left[\frac{2004}{p}\right] \pmod{p}
(in particular, p<2004p<2004). Let 2004=qp+r2004=qp+r, where 0rp10 \leq r \leq p-1. Then [2004p]=[q+rp]=q\left[\frac{2004}{p}\right]=\left[q+\frac{r}{p}\right]=q and (1)(1) is equivalent to rq(modp)r \equiv q \pmod{p}.

For q<pq<p, this congruence gives r=qr=q. Then
2004=(p+1)qp21 2004=(p+1)q \leq p^{2}-1
and therefore p47p \geq 47. Since p+1p+1 divides 2004=341672004=3 \cdot 4 \cdot 167, we get p=2003p=2003 which is a solution of the problem.

For qpq \geq p, we have that 2004pqp22004 \geq pq \geq p^{2}, i.e., p43p \leq 43. A direct verification of (1) shows that p=17p=17 is the only solution in this case.

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

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