Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 5.1 AIME, harder Find the answer

Positive integers a,ba, b, and cc have the property that ab,bca^{b}, b^{c}, and cac^{a} end in 4, 2, and 9, respectively. Compute the minimum possible value of a+b+ca+b+c.

A number or a short expression. Spacing and $ signs are ignored.

Solution

This minimum is attained when (a,b,c)=(2,2,13)(a, b, c)=(2,2,13). To show that we cannot do better, observe that aa must be even, so cc ends in 3 or 7. If c13c \geq 13, since aa and bb are even, it's clear (2,2,13)(2,2,13) is optimal. Otherwise, c=3c=3 or c=7c=7, in which case bcb^{c} can end in 2 only when bb ends in 8. However, no eighth power ends in 4, so we would need b18b \geq 18 (and a2a \geq 2), which makes the sum 2+18+3=232+18+3=23 larger than 17.

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