Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /803 of 1394

Algebra Difficulty 5.3 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:
Is the number
(1+12)(1+14)(1+16)(1+12018) \left(1+\frac{1}{2}\right)\left(1+\frac{1}{4}\right)\left(1+\frac{1}{6}\right) \ldots\left(1+\frac{1}{2018}\right)
greater than, less than, or equal to 5050?

Solution

Solution:
Call the expression SS. Note that
(1+12)(1+14)(1+16)(1+12018)<(1+11)(1+13)(1+15)(1+12017) \left(1+\frac{1}{2}\right)\left(1+\frac{1}{4}\right)\left(1+\frac{1}{6}\right) \ldots\left(1+\frac{1}{2018}\right)<\left(1+\frac{1}{1}\right)\left(1+\frac{1}{3}\right)\left(1+\frac{1}{5}\right) \ldots\left(1+\frac{1}{2017}\right)
Multiplying these two products together, we get
(1+11)(1+12)(1+13)(1+12018)=21324320192018=2019 \begin{aligned} & \left(1+\frac{1}{1}\right)\left(1+\frac{1}{2}\right)\left(1+\frac{1}{3}\right) \ldots\left(1+\frac{1}{2018}\right) \\ & =\frac{2}{1} \cdot \frac{3}{2} \cdot \frac{4}{3} \cdots \frac{2019}{2018} \\ & =2019 \end{aligned}
This shows that
S2<2019S<2019<50 S^{2}<2019 \Longrightarrow S<\sqrt{2019}<50
as desired.

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

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