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Algebra Difficulty 6.6 National Olympiad Prove it North Macedonia

A passenger wanted to know the speed of the bus in which he was traveling, so he looked through the window and saw on a road sign (denoting the distance from the town from where he started his traveling) two-digit number. After one hour drive he saw on another road sign a three-digit number written with the same two digits as one hour before but in opposite order and a zero between them. The passenger evaluated the speed of the bus and fell asleep. Two hours later he woke up and saw on a road sign three-digit number with first and last digit same as the number two hours ago but different middle digit. If we know that the bus had constant speed determine the speed and the numbers which the passenger saw on the road signs.

Solution

On the first road sign the passenger saw the number 10x+y10x + y, 0<x90 < x \le 9, 0y90 \le y \le 9. One hour later he saw the number 100y+x100y + x, y0y \ne 0. During that time the bus has driven (100y+x)(10x+y)=9(11yx) km(100y + x) - (10x + y) = 9(11y - x)\text{ km}. The bus had constant speed so in the next two hours it has driven 29(11yx)=18(11yx)2 \cdot 9(11y - x) = 18(11y - x) and the passenger saw the number 100y+10z+x100y + 10z + x, 0<z90 < z \le 9. So we get 18(11yx)=(100y+10z+x)(100y+x)18(11y - x) = (100y + 10z + x) - (100y + x) or 9(11yx)=5z9(11y - x) = 5z. The last equality is possible only if z=9z = 9 and 11yx=511y - x = 5. Because 0<x,y90 < x, y \le 9 we obtain x=6x = 6 and y=1y = 1. So we get the speed from 9(11yx)=1v9(11y - x) = 1 \cdot v, or v=45 km/hv = 45\text{ km/h}. The numbers that the passenger saw on the road signs are 6161, 106106 and 196196.

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