Maths Olympiad Prep

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, 2012

Number theory Difficulty 6.5 National Olympiad Prove it Slovenia

Find all natural numbers n10n \ge 10 with non-zero digits that satisfy the following condition: if any of the digits of nn is deleted, the obtained number is a divisor of nn.

Solution

Suppose the decimal notation of a natural number nn is equal to akak1a2a1\overline{a_k a_{k-1} \dots a_2 a_1}. The main condition of the problem says that the number akak1a2\overline{a_k a_{k-1} \dots a_2} divides the number akak1a2a1=10akak1a2+a1\overline{a_k a_{k-1} \dots a_2 a_1} = 10 \cdot \overline{a_k a_{k-1} \dots a_2} + a_1, hence it also divides the number a1a_1. Since a10a_1 \neq 0, the number akak1a2\overline{a_k a_{k-1} \dots a_2} can contain at most one digit, hence k=2k=2.

If now n=a2a1n = \overline{a_2 a_1}, then a2a_2 must divide a1a_1, from which we conclude a2=a1a_2 = a_1 or a24a_2 \le 4. The number nn can thus only be equal to 99, 88, 77, 66, 55, 48, 44, 39, 36, 33, 28, 26, 24, 22, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12 or 11. Among these numbers only 99, 88, 77, 66, 55, 48, 44, 36, 33, 24, 22, 15, 12 and 11 fulfill the condition of the problem.

To summarize, the solutions are 11, 12, 15, 22, 24, 33, 36, 44, 48, 55, 66, 77, 88, 99.

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