Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /451 of 740

, 2022

Algebra Difficulty 5.1 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:
A real number xx is chosen uniformly at random from the interval [0,1000][0,1000]. Find the probability that
x2.52.5=x6.25. \left\lfloor\frac{\left\lfloor\frac{x}{2.5}\right\rfloor}{2.5}\right\rfloor=\left\lfloor\frac{x}{6.25}\right\rfloor .

Solution

Solution:
Let y=x2.5y=\frac{x}{2.5}, so yy is chosen uniformly at random from [0,400][0,400]. Then we need
y2.5=y2.5. \left\lfloor\frac{\lfloor y\rfloor}{2.5}\right\rfloor=\left\lfloor\frac{y}{2.5}\right\rfloor .
Let y=5a+by=5 a+b, where 0b<50 \leq b<5 and aa is an integer. Then
y2.5=5a+b2.5=2a+b2.5 \left\lfloor\frac{\lfloor y\rfloor}{2.5}\right\rfloor=\left\lfloor\frac{5 a+\lfloor b\rfloor}{2.5}\right\rfloor=2 a+\left\lfloor\frac{\lfloor b\rfloor}{2.5}\right\rfloor
while
y2.5=5a+b2.5=2a+b2.5, \left\lfloor\frac{y}{2.5}\right\rfloor=\left\lfloor\frac{5 a+b}{2.5}\right\rfloor=2 a+\left\lfloor\frac{b}{2.5}\right\rfloor,
so we need b2.5=b2.5\left\lfloor\frac{\lfloor b\rfloor}{2.5}\right\rfloor=\left\lfloor\frac{b}{2.5}\right\rfloor, where bb is selected uniformly at random from [0,5][0,5]. This can be shown to always hold except for b[2.5,3)b \in[2.5,3), so the answer is 10.55=9101-\frac{0.5}{5}=\frac{9}{10}.

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

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