Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 7.4 National Olympiad, round 2 Prove it Italy

Problem:

a. Find all two-digit positive integers nn having the following property: both integers obtained by erasing one of the two digits of the decimal representation of nn are divisors (positive integers) of nn.

b. Let n>10n>10 be an integer written with kk decimal digits, all different from zero. Suppose that each of the integers obtained by erasing one of the kk digits of the decimal representation of nn is a divisor (positive integer) of nn. Show that necessarily k=2k=2.

Example. For n=123n=123 we have k=3k=3, and the integers obtained by erasing digits of nn are 23,13,1223,13,12.

Solution

Solution:

a. Let us write n=10a+bn=10 a+b with aa and bb decimal digits, that is 1a91 \leq a \leq 9 and 1b91 \leq b \leq 9: by hypothesis a=0a=0 is not possible (since n>10n>10), and b=0b=0 is not possible because in that case, erasing the first digit of nn would give 0, which does not divide nn. The conditions are then that aa divides 10a+b10 a+b, which is equivalent to the fact that aa divides 10a+b10a=b10 a+b-10 a=b, and that bb divides 10a+b10 a+b, equivalent to bb dividing 10a+bb=10a10 a+b-b=10 a. Let us then set b=kab=k a, where kk is an integer such that 1k91 \leq k \leq 9. We find that b=kab=k a divides 10a10 a, that is, kk divides 10: if k=1k=1 we find nine solutions in which a=ba=b, namely n=11,22,33,44,55,66,77,88,99n=11,22,33,44,55,66,77,88,99. If k=2k=2 then b<10b<10 implies a<5a<5, and we find the solutions n=12,24,36,48n=12,24,36,48. Finally, if k=5k=5, we similarly find the unique solution n=15n=15.

b. Let us write n=10a+bn=10 a+b with 1b91 \leq b \leq 9 the last digit of nn and 1a=(nb)/101 \leq a=(n-b) / 10 an integer (this time not necessarily of a single digit). Erasing the last digit, we find that aa must divide 10a+b10 a+b, and hence also that aa divides (10a+b)10a=b(10 a+b)-10 \cdot a=b. Since bb is a positive number less than or equal to 9, then aa (which divides bb) also cannot exceed 9, so aa is composed of a single digit and nn is written with two decimal digits as desired. The solutions are then only those found in the previous point, which are all valid because they have no zero digits.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement translated into English from it; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.