Olympiad Maths Prep

Track / Stage 3 / 92 of 260 #92 of 2000

Problem 92

AMC 10/12, early questions
Number theory Difficulty 3.4 Find the answer

Which of the following numbers is a perfect square?
(A) 445566(B) 445665(C) 455466(D) 465465(E) 465564\text{(A) }4^4 5^5 6^6 \qquad \text{(B) }4^4 5^6 6^5 \qquad \text{(C) }4^5 5^4 6^6 \qquad \text{(D) }4^6 5^4 6^5 \qquad \text{(E) }4^6 5^5 6^4

Official solution

For a positive integer to be a perfect square, all the primes in its prime factorization must have an even exponent. With a quick glance at the answer choices, we can eliminate options
(A)\textbf{(A)} because 555^5 is an odd power
(B)\textbf{(B)} because 65=25356^5 = 2^5 \cdot 3^5 and 353^5 is an odd power
(D)\textbf{(D)} because 65=25356^5 = 2^5 \cdot 3^5 and 353^5 is an odd power, and
(E)\textbf{(E)} because 555^5 is an odd power.
This leaves option (C),\textbf{(C)}, in which 45=(22)5=2104^5=(2^{2})^{5}=2^{10}, and since 10,4,10, 4, and 66 are all even, (C)\textbf{(C)} is a perfect square. Thus, our answer is (C) 445466\boxed{\textbf{(C) } 4^4 5^4 6^6}.

Source: NuminaMath-1.5, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic, difficulty and ordering added by this site.