Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 5.1 AIME, harder Prove it Ibero-American Mathematical Olympiad

Problem:

Find all positive integers n<1000n < 1000 such that the cube of the sum of the digits of nn equals n2n^{2}.

Solution

Solution:

n<1000n < 1000, so the sum of the digits is at most 2727, so n2n^{2} is a cube not exceeding 27327^{3}. So we are looking for m3m^{3} which is also a square. That implies mm is a square. So the only possibilities are m=1,4,9,16,25m = 1, 4, 9, 16, 25. Giving n=1,8,27,64,125n = 1, 8, 27, 64, 125. The corresponding cubes of the digit sums are 1,512,729,1000,5121, 512, 729, 1000, 512, whereas the corresponding squares are 1,64,729,4096,156251, 64, 729, 4096, 15625. Thus the only solutions are n=1,27n = 1, 27.

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