Problem:
How many positive integers have the property that their representation in base 2 coincides with the representation in base 3 of ?
Problem:
How many positive integers have the property that their representation in base 2 coincides with the representation in base 3 of ?
Pick one
Solution:
The answer is (C). Let be a positive integer. Let be the digits, from left to right, of the representation of in base 2. Each of the will take a value between 0 and 1, and we may assume without loss of generality that . Therefore . In particular the estimate holds. Suppose now that satisfies the hypotheses of the problem, and hence that are also the digits of the representation in base 3 of . Then we have and the estimate holds. Now if we have and hence, putting together the estimates obtained above, we get , which is not possible. Hence . Now by hypothesis
that is
from which one immediately deduces that (otherwise the expression on the left is greater than 8; the take the value 0 or 1). Now has exactly two solutions (with at least one digit different from 0), namely and which correspond respectively to the two numbers and .