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Number theory Difficulty 5.7 AIME, harder Prove it India

Problem:

2. Call a natural number nn faithful, if there exist natural numbers a<b<ca < b < c such that aa divides bb, bb divides cc and n=a+b+cn = a + b + c.

(i) Show that all but a finite number of natural numbers are faithful.

(ii) Find the sum of all natural numbers which are not faithful.

Solutions — 2

Solution 1

Solution:

Suppose nNn \in \mathbb{N} is faithful. Let kNk \in \mathbb{N} and consider knk n. Since n=a+b+cn = a + b + c, with a<b<ca < b < c, aba \mid b and bcb \mid c, we see that kn=ka+kb+kck n = k a + k b + k c which shows that knk n is faithful.

Let p>5p > 5 be a prime. Then pp is odd and p=(p3)+2+1p = (p - 3) + 2 + 1 shows that pp is faithful. If nNn \in \mathbb{N} contains a prime factor p>5p > 5, then the above observation shows that nn is faithful. This shows that a number which is not faithful must be of the form 2α3β5γ2^{\alpha} 3^{\beta} 5^{\gamma}. We also observe that 24=16=12+3+12^{4} = 16 = 12 + 3 + 1, 32=9=6+2+13^{2} = 9 = 6 + 2 + 1 and 52=25=22+2+15^{2} = 25 = 22 + 2 + 1, so that 242^{4}, 323^{2} and 525^{2} are faithful. Hence nNn \in \mathbb{N} is also faithful if it contains a factor of the form 2α2^{\alpha} where α4\alpha \geq 4; a factor of the form 3β3^{\beta} where β2\beta \geq 2; or a factor of the form 5γ5^{\gamma} where γ2\gamma \geq 2. Thus the numbers which are not faithful are of the form 2α3β5γ2^{\alpha} 3^{\beta} 5^{\gamma}, where α3\alpha \leq 3, β1\beta \leq 1 and γ1\gamma \leq 1. We may enumerate all such numbers:
1,2,3,4,5,6,8,10,12,15,20,24,30,40,60,120 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 20, 24, 30, 40, 60, 120
Among these 120=112+7+1120 = 112 + 7 + 1, 60=48+8+460 = 48 + 8 + 4, 40=36+3+140 = 36 + 3 + 1, 30=18+9+330 = 18 + 9 + 3, 20=12+6+220 = 12 + 6 + 2, 15=12+2+115 = 12 + 2 + 1, and 10=6+3+110 = 6 + 3 + 1. It is easy to check that the other numbers cannot be written in the required form. Hence the only numbers which are not faithful are
1,2,3,4,5,6,8,12,24 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 12, 24
Their sum is 6565.

Solution 2

Solution:

If n=a+b+cn = a + b + c with a<b<ca < b < c is faithful, we see that a1a \geq 1, b2b \geq 2 and c4c \geq 4. Hence n7n \geq 7. Thus 1,2,3,4,5,61, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 are not faithful. As observed earlier, knk n is faithful whenever nn is. We also notice that for odd n7n \geq 7, we can write n=1+2+(n3)n = 1 + 2 + (n - 3) so that all odd n7n \geq 7 are faithful. Consider 2n,4n,8n2 n, 4 n, 8 n, where n7n \geq 7 is odd. By observation, they are all faithful. Let us list a few of them:
2n:14,18,22,26,30,34,38,42,46,50,54,58,62,4n:28,36,44,52,60,68,8n:56,72, \begin{aligned} 2 n & : \quad 14, 18, 22, 26, 30, 34, 38, 42, 46, 50, 54, 58, 62, \ldots \\ 4 n & : \quad 28, 36, 44, 52, 60, 68, \ldots \\ 8 n & : \quad 56, 72, \ldots \end{aligned}
We observe that 16=12+3+116 = 12 + 3 + 1 and hence it is faithful. Thus all multiples of 1616 are also faithful. Thus we see that 16,32,48,64,16, 32, 48, 64, \ldots are faithful. Any even number which is not a multiple of 1616 must be either an odd multiple of 22, or that of 44, or that of 88. Hence, the only numbers not covered by this process are 8,10,12,20,24,408, 10, 12, 20, 24, 40. Of these, we see that
10=1+3+6,20=2×10,40=4×10 10 = 1 + 3 + 6, \quad 20 = 2 \times 10, \quad 40 = 4 \times 10
so that 10,20,4010, 20, 40 are faithful. Thus the only numbers which are not faithful are
1,2,3,4,5,6,8,12,24 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 12, 24
Their sum is 6565.

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