But it's floored!

Algebra Level 5

2 x + 4 x + 6 x + 8 x \lfloor 2x \rfloor + \lfloor 4x \rfloor + \lfloor 6x \rfloor + \lfloor 8x \rfloor

For real numbers x x , how many of the first 1000 positive integers can be displayed in the form above?


The answer is 600.

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1 solution

Otto Bretscher
May 13, 2015

This is a step function that makes 11 jumps on every interval [ n , n + 1 ) [n,n+1) , where n n is an integer, namely, at n + k 8 n+\frac{k}{8} for k = 1 , 2 , . . , 7 k=1,2,..,7 and at n + k 6 n+\frac{k}{6} , for k = 1 , . . . , 5 k=1,...,5 .... but we need to subtract one since 4 8 = 3 6 \frac{4}{8}=\frac{3}{6} . Thus f ( x ) f(x) attains 12 distinct values on [ n , n + 1 ) [n,n+1) .

Now f ( 0 ) = 0 f(0)=0 and f ( 50 ) = 100 + 200 + 300 + 400 = 1000 f(50)=100+200+300+400=1000 . On the 50 intervals [ n , n + 1 ) [n,n+1) for n = 0 , . . , 49 n=0,..,49 , the function f ( x ) f(x) attains 50 × 12 = 600 50\times12=600 non-negative values < 1000 <1000 . If we reject 0 and include 1000, we end up with 600 \boxed{600} positive values 1000 \leq{1000} .

exactly !!!! (y)

Rohan Chandra - 6 years, 1 month ago

Pretty much how I did it :) Great solution!

Dylan Pentland - 6 years, 1 month ago

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