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South African Mathematical Olympiad Third Round

Number theory Difficulty 4.9 AIME Prove it South Africa

Determine the last two digits of the product of the squares of all positive odd integers less than 20142014.

Solutions — 2

Solution 1

Since the product of the odd integers less than 20142014 contains 2525 as a factor, it is clearly divisible by 2525. Also, since it is odd, its last two digits have to be 2525 or 7575. So the product is either of the form 100n+25100n + 25 or of the form 100n+75100n + 75. In either case, the last two digits of the squared product (which is the same as the product of the squares) are 2525:
(100n+25)2=10000n2+5000n+625=100(100n2+50n+6)+25 (100n + 25)^2 = 10000n^2 + 5000n + 625 = 100(100n^2 + 50n + 6) + 25
or
(100n+75)2=10000n2+15000n+5625=100(100n2+150n+56)+25. (100n + 75)^2 = 10000n^2 + 15000n + 5625 = 100(100n^2 + 150n + 56) + 25.
In fact, we see that the last three digits have to be 625625.

Solution 2

Our number has 25=5225 = 5^2 as a factor, so its last two digits are 0000, 2525, 5050 or 7575. Moreover, it is the square of an odd number, which we can write as (2n+1)2=4n2+4n+1(2n+1)^2 = 4n^2 + 4n + 1. This means that the remainder upon division by 44 has to be 11. Now note that 100n+0100n + 0, 100n+25100n + 25, 100n+50100n + 50 and 100n+75100n + 75 leave a remainder of 00, 11, 22, 33 respectively when divided by 44. This means that the last two digits are in fact 2525.

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