Find the least positive integer n for which there exists a set { s 1 , s 2 , . . . , s n } consisting of n distinct positive integers such that
( 1 − s 1 1 ) ( 1 − s 2 1 ) ⋯ ⋯ ( 1 − s n 1 ) = 2 0 1 0 4 2
Bonus:- Prove it's unique
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First we show that n ≤ 4 8 . For this, it suffices to exhibit a set of 4 8 positive integers with the desired property.
So let s 1 = 2 , s 2 = 3 , … , s 4 4 = 4 5 ; s 4 5 = 6 4 , s 4 6 = 6 5 , s 4 7 = 6 6 , s 4 8 = 6 7 . Then i = 1 ∏ 4 8 ( 1 − s i 1 ) = 4 5 1 ⋅ 6 7 6 3 = 3 0 1 5 6 3 = 2 0 1 0 4 2 , as desired.
Now we want to give a lower bound for n . The idea is that 2 0 1 0 4 2 is so small that we need a lot of terms in the product.
Suppose without loss of generality that the s i are in ascending order. Note that s i ≥ i + 1 (since s 1 = 1 is impossible). Then i = 1 ∏ n ( 1 − s i 1 ) ≥ i = 1 ∏ n ( 1 − i + 1 1 ) = 2 1 ⋅ 3 2 ⋯ n + 1 n = n + 1 1 .
Since 2 0 1 0 4 2 ≥ n + 1 1 , this already shows that n ≥ 4 6 . 8 5 . . . This bound is not quite good enough.
We can tighten this a bit in our case because one of the s i must be divisible by the prime 6 7 since the denominator of the product is. The minimum of the product with respect to this requirement is clearly when s i = i + 1 for 1 ≤ i ≤ n − 1 and s n = 6 7 . So i = 1 ∏ n ( 1 − s i 1 ) ≥ n 1 ⋅ 6 7 6 6 . So 2 0 1 0 4 2 ≥ 6 7 n 6 6 , which gives n ≥ 4 2 3 0 ⋅ 6 6 = 4 7 . 1 4 . . .
Putting the lower and upper bounds together shows that n = 4 8 .