Maths Olympiad Prep

Track / Stage 3 / 68 of 260 #68 of 1964

Problem 68

AMC 10/12, early questions
Number theory Difficulty 3.3 Find the answer

Which of the following numbers is a perfect square?
$\mathrm{

Pick one

Official solution

Using the fact that n!=n(n1)!n! = n\cdot (n-1)!, we can write:
\begin{align} A&=98! \cdot (99\cdot 98!) = 99 \cdot (98!)^2 = 11\cdot3^2\cdot(98!)^2 \\ B&=100 \cdot 99 \cdot (98!)^2 = 11\cdot10^2\cdot3^2\cdot( 98!)^2 \\ C&=100\cdot (99!)^2 = 10^2\cdot (99!)^2\\ D&=101\cdot 100\cdot (99!)^2 = 101 \cdot 10^2 \cdot (99!)^2\\ E& =101\cdot (100!)^2 \end{align}
We see that (C) 99!100!\boxed{\mathrm{(C) \ } 99! \cdot 100!} is a square, and because 1111, and 101101 are primes, none of the other four choices are squares.

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