It's not actually that easy

What is the least possible composite value of n 2 n 1 n^{2}-n-1 where n n is a positive, prime integer?


The answer is 155.

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.

3 solutions

We know that when we square a number ending with 3 3 , the result is a number ending with 9 9 , which will be subtracted by the previous prime ending with 3 3 , and again subtracted by 1 1 , so the number will end with 5 5 . The smaller primes ending with 3 3 are 3 3 and 13 13 . But obviously, 3 3 doesn't works because it yields the prime 5 5 . So all we need is to check the primes 5 5 , 7 7 and 11 11 , and if they don't work, then the answer will be the substitution of 13 13 . They dont work, and hence the least composite result is 169 13 1 = 155 169 - 13 - 1 = \boxed {155} .

Great job!

Finn Hulse - 7 years, 3 months ago

This sucks. I was doing the math in my head going along the prime numbers and I was just on 13 and figured that it was a lost cause.

Robert Fritz - 7 years, 3 months ago

Log in to reply

That blows bro. How unfortunate.

Finn Hulse - 7 years, 3 months ago

nice

Rajeev Giri - 7 years, 3 months ago

can anyone explain what composite value means, because even google doesn't know

Daniel Chirita - 7 years, 3 months ago

Log in to reply

A composite value is a number that can be expressed as the product of two or more primes. As an example, 26 26 is composite because it equals 2 13 2\cdot 13 , while 13 13 isn't composite (is prime).

Diego E. Nazario Ojeda - 7 years, 3 months ago

Log in to reply

In simpler terms, it's just a number that isn't prime.

Finn Hulse - 7 years, 3 months ago

Log in to reply

@Finn Hulse Wrong! Every number which isn't a prime, needn't be composite.

Satvik Golechha - 6 years, 5 months ago

im sorry I have not been able to understand why you have focused on numbers ending with 3 ,only.

Vaishnavi Gupta - 7 years, 3 months ago

Log in to reply

coz if u take any other numbers, the resultant results have a lower possibility to be composite....

Navneet Gupta - 7 years, 2 months ago
Finn Hulse
Mar 3, 2014

I'm not sure whether there's a better way of doing it, but when I first thought of this, I was trying to solve something else. If you factor this to n ( n 1 ) 1 n(n-1)-1 , you're looking for 1 less than twice a triangular number. There must be other ways of solving this, because that's a stupid way. Yeah, but anyways, when I started trying out primes, none of them seemed to work! I thought I had discovered a property of primes, but then I tried 13. 169 13 1 = 155 169-13-1=155 which is composite. And that is the least possible value.

The way I did this was to find pairs of numbers 1 prime and 1 less than prime and just test them out to find one that works. Also since n(n-1) is always going to be even, the composite number must be odd. :P

Nucky Korprasertsri - 7 years, 3 months ago

Log in to reply

Hmm... That's right, I guess.

Finn Hulse - 7 years, 3 months ago

13*13-13-1=155

0 pending reports

×

Problem Loading...

Note Loading...

Set Loading...