Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /1102 of 1394

, 2019

Number theory Difficulty 5.6 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:
Let SS be the set of all positive factors of 60006000. What is the probability that a random quadruple (a,b,c,d)S4(a, b, c, d) \in S^{4} satisfies
lcm(gcd(a,b),gcd(c,d))=gcd(lcm(a,b),lcm(c,d))? \operatorname{lcm}(\operatorname{gcd}(a, b), \operatorname{gcd}(c, d)) = \operatorname{gcd}(\operatorname{lcm}(a, b), \operatorname{lcm}(c, d))?

Solution

Solution:
For each prime factor, let the greatest power that divides a,b,c,da, b, c, d be p,q,r,sp, q, r, s. WLOG assume that pqp \leq q and rsr \leq s, and further WLOG assume that prp \leq r. Then we need r=min(q,s)r = \min(q, s). If q=rq = r then we have pq=rsp \leq q = r \leq s, and if r=sr = s then we have pr=sqp \leq r = s \leq q, and in either case the condition reduces to the two "medians" among p,q,r,sp, q, r, s are equal. (It is not difficult to see that this condition is also sufficient.)

Now we compute the number of quadruples (p,q,r,sp, q, r, s) of integers between 00 and nn inclusive that satisfy the above condition. If there are three distinct numbers then there are (n+13)\binom{n+1}{3} ways to choose the three numbers and 4!/2=124!/2 = 12 ways to assign them (it must be a 11-22-11 split). If there are two distinct numbers then there are (n+12)\binom{n+1}{2} ways to choose the numbers and 4+4=84 + 4 = 8 ways to assign them (it must be a 33-11 or a 11-33 split). If there is one distinct number then there are n+1n+1 ways to assign. Together we have
12(n+13)+8(n+12)+(n+1)=2(n+1)n(n1)+4(n+1)n+(n+1)=(n+1)(2n(n+1)+1) 12\binom{n+1}{3} + 8\binom{n+1}{2} + (n+1) = 2(n+1)n(n-1) + 4(n+1)n + (n+1) = (n+1)(2n(n+1)+1)
possible quadruples. So if we choose a random quadruple then the probability that it satisfies the condition is (n+1)(2n(n+1)+1)(n+1)4=2n(n+1)+1(n+1)3\frac{(n+1)(2n(n+1)+1)}{(n+1)^4} = \frac{2n(n+1)+1}{(n+1)^3}.

Since 6000=2453316000 = 2^4 \cdot 5^3 \cdot 3^1 and the power of different primes are independent, we plug in n=4,3,1n = 4, 3, 1 to get the overall probability to be
41125256458=41512 \frac{41}{125} \cdot \frac{25}{64} \cdot \frac{5}{8} = \frac{41}{512}

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