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HMMT February Guts Round, 2024

Number theory Difficulty 5.6 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:
Given that the 32-digit integer
64312311692944269609355712372657 64312311692944269609355712372657
is the product of 6 consecutive primes, compute the sum of these 6 primes.

Solution

Solution:
Because the product is approximately 64⋅103064 \cdot 10^{30}, we know the primes are all around 200000200000. Say they are 200000+xi200000 + x_{i} for i=1,…,6i = 1, \ldots, 6.
By expanding ∏i=16(200000+xi)\prod_{i=1}^{6}\left(200000 + x_{i}\right) as a polynomial in 200000200000, we see that
31231⋅1025=2000005(x1+⋯+x6) 31231 \cdot 10^{25} = 200000^{5}\left(x_{1} + \cdots + x_{6}\right)
plus the carry from the other terms. Note that 31231=975⋅32+3131231 = 975 \cdot 32 + 31, so x1+⋯+x6≤975x_{1} + \cdots + x_{6} \leq 975.
Thus,
16(x1x2+x1x3+⋯+x5x6)≤16⋅512(x1+⋯+x6)2<203⋅10002<67⋅105 16\left(x_{1} x_{2} + x_{1} x_{3} + \cdots + x_{5} x_{6}\right) \leq 16 \cdot \frac{5}{12}\left(x_{1} + \cdots + x_{6}\right)^{2} < \frac{20}{3} \cdot 1000^{2} < 67 \cdot 10^{5}
so the carry term from 2000004(x1x2+⋯+x5x6)200000^{4}\left(x_{1} x_{2} + \cdots + x_{5} x_{6}\right) is at most 67⋅102567 \cdot 10^{25}. The other terms have negligible carry, so it is pretty clear x1+⋯+x6>972x_{1} + \cdots + x_{6} > 972, otherwise the carry term would have to be at least
31231⋅1025−2000005(972)=127⋅1025 31231 \cdot 10^{25} - 200000^{5}(972) = 127 \cdot 10^{25}
It follows that x1+⋯+x6x_{1} + \cdots + x_{6} lies in [973,975][973, 975], so the sum of the primes, 6⋅200000+(x1+⋯+x6)6 \cdot 200000 + (x_{1} + \cdots + x_{6}), lies in [1200973,1200975][1200973, 1200975].
As these primes are all greater than 22, they are all odd, so their sum is even. Thus it must be 12009741200974.

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