Can you root Pi?

True or False?

There exists an integer n n such that the leading digits of n 2 n^2 are

314159265359 314159265359


You may use the fact that π 3.14159265359 \pi \approx 3.14159265359 is irrational.

Inspiration

False True

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2 solutions

Calvin Lin Staff
Jul 31, 2015

Claim: Given any string of digits N N , there always exists an integer n n such that n 2 n^2 has leading digits of N N .

Proof: There exists a large enough integer m m such that N + 1 N > 1 0 m \sqrt{ N + 1 } - \sqrt{ N} > 10 ^ { - m } . Then ( N + 1 ) × 1 0 2 m N × 1 0 2 m > 1 \sqrt{ (N+1) \times 10 ^ {2m} } - \sqrt{ N \times 10 ^ {2m} } > 1 . Hence, there exists an integer that is between these two numbers, or that

( N + 1 ) × 1 0 2 m > n N × 1 0 2 m \sqrt{ (N+1) \times 10 ^ { 2m } } > n \geq \sqrt{ N \times 10 ^ {2m } }

Squaring both sides of the inequality, we conclude that n 2 n^2 does indeed have leading digits N N .


As an explicit example, to find an n n such that n 2 n^2 has leading digits of 314159265359, we look at

314159265359 = 560499.1216398 \sqrt{ 314159265359} = 560499.1216398 and 314159265360 = 560499.1216407 \sqrt{314159265360} = 560499.1216407 , with enough digits where they first disagree. This tells us that 56049912164 would satisfy the conditions, and indeed it does.

That's beyond my understanding I fell happy to be idiot

A Former Brilliant Member - 5 years, 10 months ago

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Keep on practicing! Work on problems at your level to build up your knowledge and confidence. For problems that you find interesting, read the solution and learn from it, sometimes people have an insight that you do not know about!

No one is expecting you to solve Fermat's last theorem immediately :)

Calvin Lin Staff - 5 years, 10 months ago

I did the same and got the answer. Before, i didn't feel that there is a greater number.

Anish Harsha - 5 years, 10 months ago

@Lakshit seth You can see my solution above.

Calvin Lin Staff - 5 years, 10 months ago
Hadia Qadir
Aug 4, 2015

1772453850906^2=a number that begins with the digits 314159265359, so the answer is TRUE.

How did you find that number?

Calvin Lin Staff - 5 years, 10 months ago

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1 way is to make a brute force program exclusively for it

Daniel Arenson - 5 years, 9 months ago

square root of pi times 10 to the arbitrarily large power and cut off the decimal ( perhaps with a floor function) .. you get the idea.

quick and dirty existence proof by example.

Agustinus Law - 5 years, 10 months ago

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