Factorials are powerful!

Let n n be the largest possible number such that 1005 ! 1005! is divisible by 1 0 n 10^n . Let the digital sum of n n be x x . Find x 4 x - 4 .

5 6 3 7

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1 solution

Jason Carrier
Nov 13, 2018

A zero at the end of a number corresponds to having a pair of factors, a 2 and a 5. Since factors of two are always more plentiful than fives in a factorial (you can look at the first handful to convince yourself of this), we need only work out how many factors of 5 there are in 1005! Luckily, there’s a quick way to do this:

Each number less than 1005 which is divisible by five contributes a facor of five, so we’ll start with 1005 5 = 201 \lfloor \frac{1005}{5} \rfloor = 201

Each number divisible by 25 contributes two fives, but one of these 5’s has already been accounted for, so we only count one more: 1005 25 = 40 \lfloor \frac{1005}{25} \rfloor = 40

Similar reasoning gives 1005 125 = 8 \lfloor \frac{1005}{125} \rfloor = 8 extra factors and 1005 625 = 1 \lfloor \frac{1005}{625} \rfloor = 1 extra, for a total of 250 trailing zeros.

For some reason the question asks for the digital sum less four, so the answer is 3 \boxed 3

(If you still aren’t convinced about the factors of 2, try adding them up the same way I’ve done with the 5’s. You’ll get a much larger answer, so we only need to know the number of fives.)

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