Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 5.9 AIME, harder Prove it Soviet Union

Problem:

a) Find the smallest square with last digit not 00 which becomes another square (not zero) by the deletion of its last two digits.

b) Find all squares, not containing the digits 00 or 55, such that if the second digit is deleted the resulting number divides the original one.

Solution

Solution:

(a) This one must have slipped through: 121121!

(b) Answer: 16,36,121,48416, 36, 121, 484. Suppose the number has more than 22 digits. Write it as (10m+n)10r+s(10m + n)10^{r} + s, where 1m91 \leq m \leq 9, 0n90 \leq n \leq 9, 0s<10r0 \leq s < 10^{r}. Then we have k(m10r+s)=(10m+n)10r+sk(m \cdot 10^{r} + s) = (10m + n)10^{r} + s, for some k>1k > 1.

ss does not contain the digits 00 or 55, so 55 does not divide ss. Hence 55 divides k1k-1, and so kk must be 66, 1111, or 1616 (if kk was 2121 or more, then the rhs would be negative). Since 2525 does not divide k1k-1, we must have r=1r = 1 and ss is a single digit.

We look at each possibility for kk in turn. k=6k = 6 gives no solutions. k=11k = 11 gives about two dozen multiples of 1111 from 121121 to 891891. By inspection the only squares are 121121 and 484484. k=16k = 16 gives 192192, which is not a square.

In addition, there is the possibility of 22 digit solutions, which I had overlooked. It is easiest to check each of the 22 digit squares, thus finding the additional solutions 1616, 3636.

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