Defying conventional calculus!

Which is the only positive integer whose k th k^\text{th} arithmetic derivative (where k N k \in \mathbb N ) is always equal to the number itself?

Details and Assumptions:

The arithmetic derivative function, denoted by n n' is a function n : N { 0 } N { 0 } n: \mathbb{N} \cup \left\{0 \right\} \to \mathbb{N} \cup \left\{0 \right\} defined by

  • n = 1 n'=1 for all prime numbers.
  • ( a b ) = a b + a b (ab)'=a' b+ a b' for a , b N { 0 } a, b \in \mathbb{N} \cup \left\{0 \right\} .
  • n . . . . k t i m e s = ( ( ( n ) ) . . . . ) k t i m e s n\overbrace { '''....'' }^{ { k \ times } } = (((n\overbrace { ')')'....')' }^{ { k \ times } }
  • 0 = 1 = 0 0'=1'=0

Clarification:

  • The set of positive integers (or counting numbers or natural numbers) do not contain the member 0 0 in them.
  • To be clear, it is asked to find a positive integer n n which satisfies n = n = n = n = = n . . . . k t i m e s n = n' = n'' = n''' = \cdots = n\overbrace { '''....'' }^{ { k \ times } }

Inspiration .


The answer is 4.

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1 solution

Phillip Temple
Apr 4, 2018

I made some simplifying assumptions and saw where that took me:

it looks like if our number is a perfect square, then the derivative is symmetrical and likely to add back up to itself, so our question becomes to find a number

N^2 such that N' * N + N' * N = 2 * N' * N = N^2 So 2 * N' = N

Let's try to solve this by assuming N is prime.

N' = 1 so this becomes N = 2.

N = 2 satisfies all our conditions

So our number is 2^2 = 4.

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