Problem:
is a prime number such that the period of its decimal reciprocal is . That is,
for some block of digits , but
for all blocks with less than digits. Find the st digit, counting from the left, of .
Problem:
is a prime number such that the period of its decimal reciprocal is . That is,
for some block of digits , but
for all blocks with less than digits. Find the st digit, counting from the left, of .
Solution:
Let be a block of digits and let Then . Subtracting the previous two equalities gives us , i.e. .
Then the condition that reduces to or . For a given and , such an exists if and only if divides . Thus divides but not . Note that can be factored in this way:
Since is prime and does not divide , it must divide , so that for an integer and .
If , or , the fraction either terminates or repeats less than digits. Therefore and . Now let us calculate the st digit of , i.e. the digit representing multiples of . Since is divisible by , its s digit and all later digits are . Since , does not contribute a digit to the s place, but it generates a borrow to this place, changing it into a . Thus the st digit of is a .