Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 5.5 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:

There are two prime numbers pp so that 5p5p can be expressed in the form n25\left\lfloor\frac{n^{2}}{5}\right\rfloor for some positive integer nn. What is the sum of these two prime numbers?

Solution

Solution:

Note that the remainder when n2n^{2} is divided by 55 must be 00, 11, or 44. Then we have that 25p=n225p = n^{2} or 25p=n2125p = n^{2} - 1 or 25p=n2425p = n^{2} - 4. In the first case there are no solutions. In the second case, if 25p=(n1)(n+1)25p = (n-1)(n+1), then we must have n1=25n-1 = 25 or n+1=25n+1 = 25 as n1n-1 and n+1n+1 cannot both be divisible by 55, and also cannot both have a factor besides 2525. Similarly, in the third case, 25p=(n2)(n+2)25p = (n-2)(n+2), so we must have n2=25n-2 = 25 or n+2=25n+2 = 25.

Therefore the nn we have to check are 2323, 2424, 2626, 2727. These give values of p=21p = 21, p=23p = 23, p=27p = 27, and p=29p = 29, of which only 2323 and 2929 are prime, so the answer is 23+29=5223 + 29 = 52.

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