As perfect as a square! 4

Consider the following set of integers

{ 10 , 20 , 30 , 40 , 50 , 60 , 70 , 80 , 90 } \{10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 \}

Find the least number of elements that must be removed in order for the product of the remaining elements to be a perfect square .

Extensions:

  1. How many different ways are there to achieve this?
  2. Is there specifically an element that must be removed?
0 0 1 1 > 3 >3 2 2 3 3

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1 solution

Ethan Mandelez
May 25, 2021

Here's my approach.

Let's break down each number into it's respective prime factors:

10 = 2 × 5 10 = 2 \times 5 20 = 2 2 × 5 20 = 2^{2} \times 5 30 = 2 × 3 × 5 30 = 2 \times 3 \times 5

etc...

I don't think this is tedious since it is relatively straightforward to decompose multiples of 10 10 into prime factors.

If you then multiply these numbers you will get 2 16 × 3 4 × 5 10 × 7 2^{16} \times 3^{4} \times 5^{10} \times 7 . From there I must definitely remove 70 70 since there is no other power of 7 7 to make a perfect square.

Also by removing 70 70 we result in the sum 2 15 × 3 4 × 5 9 2^{15} \times 3^{4} \times 5^{9} . Notice that if all the exponents are even then it is a perfect square. Therefore we can simply remove 10 , 40 10, 40 or 90 90 which makes the product of the remaining numbers which is now a perfect square (eg. if we remove 10 10 then the product will become 2 14 × 3 4 × 5 8 2^{14} \times 3^{4} \times 5^{8} )

Therefore the answer is 2 2 .


This is the 4 4 th problem I made relating to square numbers. Here are the others:

As perfect as a square! 3

As perfect as a square! 2

As perfect as a square! 1

Nice, did the same!

SRIJAN Singh - 2 weeks, 4 days ago

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Thank you 👍

Ethan Mandelez - 2 weeks, 4 days ago

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