Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 5.0 AIME, harder Find the answer

The average of a set of distinct primes is 27. What is the largest prime that can be in this set?

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Solution

Denote the set of these primes by AA and the number of elements in AA by n. There are 9 primes smaller than 27, namely 2,3,5,7,11,13,17,192,3,5,7,11,13,17,19 and 23. Since 27 is odd and all primes except 2 are odd, 2A2 \notin A. Thus the largest prime pp is at most 2793571113171923=14527 \cdot 9-3-5-7-11-13-17-19-23=145, so p141p \leq 141. When the primes are 3,5,7,11,13,17,19,23,29,313,5,7,11,13,17,19,23,29,31 and 139, their average is 27. Therefore p=139p=139.

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