Problem:
For a positive integer , consider the fractions
The product of these fractions equals , but if you reciprocate (i.e. turn upside down) some of the fractions, the product will change. Can you make the product equal ? Find all values of for which this is possible and prove that you have found them all.
Solution
Solution:
We will show that this is possible exactly when is a perfect square larger than . Suppose that we can reciprocate some of the fractions so that the resulting product is . Let represent the product of the fractions that we will reciprocate and represent the product of the fractions that we will leave alone. Then while . Multiplying these equations shows that , so is the square of a rational number, which means that it has to be a perfect square.
Now suppose that is a perfect square. Then we can reciprocate the first terms of the product to obtain
demonstrating that modifying the product as desired is indeed possible for any perfect square.
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