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Number theory Difficulty 6.3 National olympiad Prove it Ukraine

Three numbers 21002^{100}, 31003^{100} and 51005^{100} are written on a long paper strip without any space in-between, thus, creating one big number NN. Arsenii claims that he can change the last digit of number NN so that the new number is a power of 1313. Is he right?

Solution

Suppose Arsenii's claim is correct and by changing the last digit of number NN he obtained 13k13^k, where kk is a positive integer. Clearly, he had to change the last digit, because it is 55. Since 21001(mod3)2^{100} \equiv 1 \pmod{3}, 31000(mod3)3^{100} \equiv 0 \pmod{3} and 51001(mod3)5^{100} \equiv 1 \pmod{3}, the sums of their digits have the same remainders modulo 33. The change of the last digit 55 to digit ll means that we subtracted 22 (or added 11) and added ll modulo 33. Thus, the new number (denoted by MM) equals l0(mod3)l \equiv 0 \pmod{3}. Since 13k1(mod3)13^k \equiv 1 \pmod{3}, we could add one of the following digits: 11, 44 or 77. Since the last digit of 13k13^k can be 11, 33, 77 or 99, we need to consider two cases.
Case 1. 13k13^k ends with 11, it is possible in the case k0(mod4)k \equiv 0 \pmod{4}, then the following is true modulo 88: M=13k=134j=1692j1(mod8)M = 13^k = 13^{4j} = 169^{2j} \equiv 1 \pmod{8}. Note that M=N4M = N - 4. N5100=25501(mod8)M=N45(mod8)N \equiv 5^{100} = 25^{50} \equiv 1 \pmod{8} \Rightarrow M = N - 4 \equiv 5 \pmod{8}, so we get a contradiction.
Case 2. 13k13^k ends with 77, it is possible if k3(mod4)k \equiv 3 \pmod{4}, then the following is true modulo 88: M=13k=134j+3=1692j135(mod8)M = 13^k = 13^{4j+3} = 169^{2j} \cdot 13 \equiv 5 \pmod{8}. Note that M=N+2M3(mod8)M = N + 2 \Rightarrow M \equiv 3 \pmod{8} – contradiction.
These contradictions complete the proof.

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