Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 4.7 AIME Find the answer

Find the number of digits in the decimal representation of 2412^{41}.

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

Solution

Noticing that 210=102410002^{10}=1024 \approx 1000 allows for a good estimate. Alternatively, the number of decimal digits of nn is given by log10(n)+1\left\lfloor\log _{10}(n)\right\rfloor+1. Using log10(2)0.31\log _{10}(2) \approx 0.31 also gives the correct answer. The exact value of 2412^{41} is 2199023255552.

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