Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 5.0 AIME, harder Prove it Ukraine

Determine all positive integers nn which are less than 1% of the number 2020, and such that n+1n+1 is more than 1% of the number 2019.

Solution

The conditions of the problem can be written the following way: n2020<1100<n+12019\frac{n}{2020} < \frac{1}{100} < \frac{n+1}{2019}.

The left inequality implies that n2020<1100\frac{n}{2020} < \frac{1}{100}, so n<2020100=20.2n < \frac{2020}{100} = 20.2, hence n20n \le 20.

If n=20n=20 is substituted into the right inequality, one can see that it holds: 212019>11002100>2019\frac{21}{2019} > \frac{1}{100} \Leftrightarrow 2100 > 2019.

The right inequality doesn't hold for n19n \le 19, since n+12019202019<202000=1100\frac{n+1}{2019} \le \frac{20}{2019} < \frac{20}{2000} = \frac{1}{100}.

Thus, the only possible solution is n=20n=20.

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