What is the smallest positive integer n for which 2 4 n 5 0 ! is not an integer?
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Nicely done. Bonus question: What would the answer be if I replace the number 2 4 by 1 8 ?
In the case when 2 4 is replaced by 18 , it can be done as
factorize 18 i.e. 3 * 3 * 2
remove all the prime numbers from the numerator and factorize the remaining nos. and write only the values of 2 x and 3 y
In case any number does not contain any power of 3 or 2 don't write it and no powers other than that of 2 and 3 should be written
you will get 2 4 7 * 3 1 9
Further comparing you would get n =10
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The maximum power of 3 which divides 50! is 22 not 19. So, answer should be 12.
ans should be 15
The answer should be 12.
Let A = 2 4 n 5 0 !
⇒ A = 2 3 n ⋅ 3 n 5 0 !
We need to find a , b such that 5 0 ! = 2 a ⋅ 3 b ⋅ ( . . . ) ( the ( . . . ) signifies the prime factors that we don't need to care about )
We utilise Legendre's formula for the 2 , 3 -adic valuation:
a = ν 2 ( 5 0 ! ) = i = 1 ∑ ∞ ⌊ 2 i 5 0 ⌋ = 4 7
b = ν 3 ( 5 0 ! ) = i = 1 ∑ ∞ ⌊ 3 i 5 0 ⌋ = 2 2
⇒ A = 2 3 n ⋅ 3 n 5 0 ! = 2 3 n ⋅ 3 n 2 4 7 ⋅ 3 2 2 ⋅ ( . . . )
⇔ A = 2 4 7 − 3 n ⋅ 3 2 2 − n ⋅ ( . . . )
For A ∈ / Z , we have 2 cases: either the power of the prime factor 2 or of the prime factor 3 , is less than 0. The purpose is to attain those powers to negative value because the powers will make A a fraction, therefore not an integer.
Case 1: 4 7 − 3 n < 0
⇔ n > 1 5 . 6 , hence we can safely let n = 1 6
Case 2: 2 2 − n < 0
⇔ n > 2 2
We can see that Case 1 is the minimal solution to n
Hence, the smallest positive integer that makes A ∈ / Z is n = 1 6
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Note that 24 = 2^3×3 So we need to find the powers of 2 and 3 in 50! so that we can find the least power of 24 which exceeds that value. The power of 2 in 50! can be calculated as such: floor(50/2) = 25, floor(25/2) = 12, floor(12/2) = 6, floor(6/2) = 3, floor(3/2) = 1. After adding them up, we get 2^47, whose power is just one short of 48. For power of 3, we can use the same method to get 3^22. Notice that the ratio of 2 to 3 in 24 is obviously larger than that in 50!. Therefore, we only need to find the largest power of 2 exceeding 47 and divisible by 3 (so that n is an integer). In this case, it is 48. Therefore, we need 16 24s in order to exceed the power of 2 in 50!. Thus n = 16