Let be a positive integer. Each cell of an table contains an integer.Suppose that the following conditions are satisfied: Each number in the table is congruent to modulo ; The sum of numbers in any row, as well as the sum of numbers in any column, is congruent to modulo .
Let be the product of the numbers in the row, and be the product of the numbers in the column.
Find the largest possible integer such that the statement
the sums and are congruent to each other modulo
is always true.
This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try
refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and,
finally, (c)
loading the
non-javascript version of this page
. We're sorry about the hassle.
The case n = 2 is best handled separately. The matrix of elements must be of the form ( 1 + 2 a 1 − 2 a + 4 c 1 − 2 a + 4 b 1 + 2 a + 4 d ) for integers a , b , c , d , and it is easy to calculate that ( R 1 + R 2 ) − ( C 1 + C 2 ) = 1 6 ( c − b ) d is always a multiple of 1 6 , but not necessarily a multiple of 3 2 .
Suppose now that n ≥ 3 . We can write the elements of the matrix as a i j = 1 + n b i j 1 ≤ i , j ≤ n where b i j are integers. We also must have integers α i , β i for 1 ≤ i ≤ n such that j = 1 ∑ n b i j = n α i j = 1 ∑ n b j i = n β i 1 ≤ i ≤ n
Let us define the quantities B k = i j ∑ b i j k k ∈ N as well as X 1 i Y 1 i = = j 1 < j 2 ∑ b i j 1 b i j 2 j 1 < j 2 < j 3 ∑ b i j 1 b i j 2 b i j 3 X 2 j Z 2 j = = i 1 < i 2 ∑ b i 1 j b i 2 j i 1 < i 2 < i 3 ∑ b i 1 j b i 2 j b i 3 j
First note that n i ∑ α i = B 1 = n j ∑ β j so that Q = j ∑ ( α j 2 − β j 2 ) = 2 i < j ∑ ( β i β j − α i α j ) is even. But then 2 X 1 i = = j 1 = j 2 ∑ b i j 1 b i j 2 = ( j ∑ b i j ) 2 − j ∑ b i j 2 = n 2 α i 2 − j ∑ b i j 2 so that 2 i ∑ X 1 i = n 2 i ∑ α i 2 − B 2 Similarly 2 j ∑ X 2 j = n 2 j ∑ β j 2 − B 2 and hence 2 i ∑ X 1 i − 2 j ∑ X 2 j = Q n 2 so that i ∑ X 1 i ≡ j ∑ X 2 j ( m o d n 2 )
Next note that ( j ∑ b i j ) 3 3 Y 1 i = j ∑ b i j 3 + 3 j 1 = j 2 ∑ b i j 1 2 b i j 2 + 6 Y 1 i = − 2 j ∑ b i j 3 + 3 ( j ∑ b i j 2 ) ( j ∑ b i j ) + 6 Y 1 i = − 2 j ∑ b i j 3 + 3 ( j ∑ b i j ) 3 − 6 ( j 1 < j 2 ∑ b i j 1 b i j 2 ) ( j ∑ b i j ) + 6 Y 1 i = i ∑ b i j 3 − n 3 α i 3 + 3 n α i X 1 i so that 3 i ∑ Y 1 i = B 3 − n 3 i ∑ α i 3 + 3 n i ∑ α i X 1 i Similarly 3 j ∑ Y 2 j = B 3 − n 3 j ∑ β j 3 + 3 n j ∑ β j X 2 j and hence 3 ( i ∑ Y 1 i − j ∑ Y 2 j ) = n 3 j ∑ ( β j 3 − α j 3 ) + 3 n j ∑ ( α j X 1 j − β j X 2 j ) from which it is clear that i ∑ Y 1 i ≡ j ∑ Y 2 j ( m o d n ) even when n is divisible by 3 .
We now note that R i = j ∏ a i j = j ∏ ( 1 + n b i j ) ≡ 1 + n j ∑ b i j + n 2 X 1 j + n 3 Y 1 i ( m o d n 4 ) so that i ∑ R i = n + n B 1 + n 2 i ∑ X 1 i + n 3 i ∑ Y 1 i ( m o d n 4 ) Similarly j ∑ C j = n + n B 1 + n 2 j ∑ X 2 j + n 3 j ∑ Y 2 j ( m o d n 4 ) and hence we deduce that i ∑ R i ≡ j ∑ C j ( m o d n 4 )
Thus ∑ i R i and ∑ j C j are congruent modulo n 4 for any integer n ≥ 2 . Since the two quantities are not always congruent modulo n 5 , as can be seen by the n = 2 case, we see that the correct answer is n 4 .