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Berkeley Math Circle Monthly Contest 1

Number theory Difficulty 4.7 AIME Prove it United States

Problem:
Show that there are infinitely many prime numbers whose last digit is not 11.

Solution

Solution:
Assume there are only finitely many such primes p1,…,pkp_{1}, \ldots, p_{k}. Consider the number
N=10p1p2…pk−1 N = 10 p_{1} p_{2} \ldots p_{k} - 1
Since NN has last digit 99, there must be a prime pp dividing NN which does not have last digit 11 (otherwise NN must have last digit 11). But by construction, pp cannot divide NN, because it leaves a remainder of p−1p-1 when divided by pp. This is a contradiction, so our assumption was wrong and there must be infinitely many such primes.

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