Enumerate

1 5 a + 3 × 2 8 8 a 3 5 2 a 9 \large \frac{15^{a + 3}\times 28^{8 - a}}{35^{2a - 9}} For how many integral values of a a is the above expression an integer?

12 9 6 15 Infinitely many values 3

This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and, finally, (c) loading the non-javascript version of this page . We're sorry about the hassle.

1 solution

Chew-Seong Cheong
May 31, 2017

First we break the expression into prime factors.

1 5 a + 3 2 8 8 a 3 5 2 a 9 = 3 a + 3 5 a + 3 2 a + 9 2 16 2 a 7 8 a 2 a + 9 = 2 16 2 a 3 a + 3 5 12 a 7 17 3 a \begin{aligned} \frac {15^{a+3}28^{8-a}}{35^{2a-9}} & = 3^{a+3}5^{a+3-2a+9}2^{16-2a}7^{8-a-2a+9} = 2^{16-2a}3^{a+3}5^{12-a}7^{17-3a} \end{aligned}

Since primes do not divide one another, the expression is not an integer when any of the powers of the prime factor is negative. For the powers to be 0 \ge 0 , we have:

{ 16 2 a 0 a 8 a + 3 0 a 3 12 a 0 a 12 17 3 a 0 a 5 \begin{cases} 16-2a \ge 0 & \implies a \le 8 \\ a+3 \ge 0 & \implies a \ge -3 \\ 12-a \ge 0 & \implies a \le 12 \\ 17-3a \ge 0 & \implies a \le 5 \end{cases}

The acceptable range is 3 a 5 -3 \le a \le 5 , 9 \boxed{9} integral values.

0 pending reports

×

Problem Loading...

Note Loading...

Set Loading...