Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 5.3 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:

Alice picks four numbers from the set {1,2,3,4,5,6}\{1,2,3,4,5,6\}, tells Bob their product and asks him to guess their sum. Bob realizes he cannot even determine for sure whether the sum is odd or even. What is the product of the numbers Alice chose?

Solution

Solution:

Let PP be said product. Evidently there are two distinct sets of numbers {x1,x2,x3,x4}\{x_{1}, x_{2}, x_{3}, x_{4}\} and {y1,y2,y3,y4}\{y_{1}, y_{2}, y_{3}, y_{4}\} such that x1x2x3x4=y1y2y3y4=Px_{1} x_{2} x_{3} x_{4} = y_{1} y_{2} y_{3} y_{4} = P, but x1+x2+x3+x4x_{1} + x_{2} + x_{3} + x_{4} and y1+y2+y3+y4y_{1} + y_{2} + y_{3} + y_{4} have different parity.

Instead of considering the four numbers Alice picks, we consider instead the two numbers Alice does not pick; {x5,x6}\{x_{5}, x_{6}\} and {y5,y6}\{y_{5}, y_{6}\}. They have the same properties we described above, since

x5x6=6!x1x2x3x4=720P=6!y1y2y3y4=y5y6 x_{5} x_{6} = \frac{6!}{x_{1} x_{2} x_{3} x_{4}} = \frac{720}{P} = \frac{6!}{y_{1} y_{2} y_{3} y_{4}} = y_{5} y_{6}
and analogously the sums also have different parities.

Thus we are looking for pairs of distinct numbers in {1,2,3,4,5,6}\{1,2,3,4,5,6\} which have the same product but different sums. We can record the entire multiplication table, as below.

×\times123456
123456
2681012
3121518
42024
530
6

The numbers with duplicate entries are
6=61=2312=26=34 \begin{aligned} 6 & = 6 \cdot 1 = 2 \cdot 3 \\ 12 & = 2 \cdot 6 = 3 \cdot 4 \end{aligned}

Of these, 12 has the desired property but 6 does not. Hence, Alice chose one of the quadruples {1,3,4,5}\{1,3,4,5\} or {1,2,5,6}\{1,2,5,6\}; the product is then P=1345=1256=60P = 1 \cdot 3 \cdot 4 \cdot 5 = 1 \cdot 2 \cdot 5 \cdot 6 = 60.

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