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Find the integer 1 < x 2016 1 < x \leq 2016 such that 1 ! 2 ! 3 ! 4 ! 2015 ! 2016 ! x ! \frac{1! \ 2! \ 3! \ 4! \ \cdots \ 2015! \ 2016!}{x!} is a perfect square.

Notation: ! ! is the factorial notation. For example, 8 ! = 1 × 2 × 3 × × 8 8! = 1\times2\times3\times\cdots\times8 .


Bonus: Generalize. For what values of k k can we divide n = 1 k n ! \displaystyle \prod_{n = 1}^{k} n! by m ! m! ( 1 < m k ) (1 < m \leq k) to get a perfect square?


The answer is 1008.

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1 solution

Icreiuhe Zhu
Jan 14, 2018

If we want a perfect square, we must have even amount of all prime divisors. In 1 ! 2 ! 3 ! 2015 ! 2016 ! 1! 2! 3! \cdots 2015! 2016! , the occurence of odd numbers ( not including its multiples) are always even, while occurences of even numbers ( not including its multiples) are always odd, so we don't have to care about the odd numbers. For example, the occurence of 3 3 in all factorials ( 3 ! 3! to 2016 ! 2016! ) is 2014 2014 times, while the occurence of 4 4 in all factorials ( 4 ! 4! to 2016 ! 2016! ) is 2013 2013 . The occurence of 2 2 including its multiples in the even numbers is 1 + 2 + 3 + + 1008 = 508536 1+2+3+\cdots+1008=508536 , which is even, so we don't have to care about 2. Therefore we only want the even numbers divided by 2 2 , which would be 1 , 2 , 3 , , 1008 1, 2, 3, \cdots, 1008 , to have even occurences. Then we can divide the whole number by 1008 ! 1008! so that 1 , 2 , 3 , , 1008 1, 2, 3, \cdots, 1008 would be cancled and have 0 occurences. Hence x = 1008 x=1008 .

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