Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /15 of 27

Number theory Difficulty 5.6 AIME, harder Prove it Croatia

Determine all positive integers nn such that there exist positive integers aa and bb which satisfy
S(a)=S(b)=S(a+b)=n. S(a) = S(b) = S(a + b) = n.
Here S(a)S(a) denotes the sum of digits of aa. (Romania 1999)

Solution

Notice that, for each positive integer aa, the numbers aa and S(a)S(a) give the same remainder when divided by 99.
Applying this observation to S(a)=S(b)=S(a+b)S(a) = S(b) = S(a+b), we conclude that aa, bb and a+ba+b give the same remainder when divided by 99. This implies that (a+b)b=a(a+b) - b = a and (a+b)a=b(a+b) - a = b are both divisible by 99. But then aa and bb are also divisible by 99. This proves that any positive integer nn satisfying the given condition must be divisible by 99.

Let us now prove the converse: let nn be a multiple of 99, i.e. let n=9kn = 9k for some positive integer kk. Taking numbers
a=1818,b=7272,a+b=9090, a = \overline{18\ldots18}, \quad b = \overline{72\ldots72}, \quad a+b = \overline{90\ldots90},
where each of the numbers has exactly 2k2k digits, we obtain a pair (a,b)(a, b) which satisfies S(a)=S(b)=S(a+b)=9k=nS(a) = S(b) = S(a+b) = 9k = n.

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 and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.