Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 5.1 AIME, harder Find the answer

I have chosen five of the numbers {1,2,3,4,5,6,7}\{1,2,3,4,5,6,7\}. If I told you what their product was, that would not be enough information for you to figure out whether their sum was even or odd. What is their product?

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

Solution

Giving you the product of the five numbers is equivalent to telling you the product of the two numbers I didn't choose. The only possible products that are achieved by more than one pair of numbers are 12({3,4}12(\{3,4\} and {2,6})\{2,6\}) and 6({1,6}6(\{1,6\} and {2,3})\{2,3\}). But in the second case, you at least know that the two unchosen numbers have odd sum (and so the five chosen numbers have odd sum also). Therefore, the first case must hold, and the product of the five chosen numbers is 12567=13457=420 1 \cdot 2 \cdot 5 \cdot 6 \cdot 7=1 \cdot 3 \cdot 4 \cdot 5 \cdot 7=420

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Source: Omni-MATH, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.