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Algebra Difficulty 4.9 AIME Find the answer

A positive integer A\overline{A} B C}, where A,B,CA, B, C are digits, satisfies ABC=BCA\overline{A B C}=B^{C}-A. Find ABC\overline{A B C}.

A number or a short expression. Fractions can be typed as 3/2, and spacing doesn't matter.

Solution

The equation is equivalent to 100A+10B+C=BCA100 A+10 B+C=B^{C}-A. Suppose A=0A=0, so that we get 10B+C=BC10 B+C=B^{C}. Reducing modB\bmod B, we find that CC must be divisible by BB. C0C \neq 0, since otherwise 10B=110 B=1, contradiction, so CBC \geq B. Thus 10B+CBB10 B+C \geq B^{B} for digits B,CB, C. For B4B \geq 4, we have 100>10B+CBB>100100>10 B+C \geq B^{B}>100, a contradiction, so B=1,2,3B=1,2,3. We can easily test that these do not yield solutions, so there are no solutions when A=0A=0. Thus A1A \geq 1, and so 100100A+10B+C1000100 \leq 100 A+10 B+C \leq 1000, and thus 100BCA1000.1A10100 \leq B^{C}-A \leq 1000.1 \leq A \leq 10, so we have 101BC1010101 \leq B^{C} \leq 1010. We can test that the only pairs (B,C)(B, C) that satisfy this condition are (2,7),(2,8),(2,9),(3,5),(3,6),(4,4),(5,3),(6,3),(7,3),(8,3),(9,3)(2,7),(2,8),(2,9),(3,5),(3,6),(4,4),(5,3),(6,3),(7,3),(8,3),(9,3). Of these pairs, only (2,7)(2,7) yields a solution to the original equation, namely A=1,B=2,C=7A=1, B=2, C=7. Thus ABC=127\overline{A B C}=127.

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