Consecutive Tallying

For what integer(s) n n is the sum of n n consecutive positive integers always divisible by n n ?

for every odd n n for every even n n for every n n No values of n n satisfy this condition

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

Chew-Seong Cheong
May 23, 2016

Relevant wiki: Sum of n, n², or n³

Let S n = n + ( n + 1 ) + ( n + 2 ) + . . . + ( 2 n 1 ) n integers S_n = \underbrace{n + (n+1)+(n+2) + ... + (2n-1)}_{n \text{ integers}} .

S n = n ( a + l ) 2 where a and l are the first and last integers of the series respectively. = n ( n + 2 n 1 ) 2 = n ( 3 n 1 ) 2 S n n = 3 n 1 2 { n = even 3 n 1 is odd n ∤ S n n = odd 3 n 1 is even n S n \begin{aligned} \implies S_n & = \frac{n(\color{#3D99F6}{a+l})}{2} \quad \quad \small \color{#3D99F6}{\text{where }a \text{ and }l \text{ are the first and last integers of the series respectively.}} \\ & = \frac{n(n+2n-1)}{2} \\ & = \frac{n(3n-1)}{2} \\ \implies \frac{S_n}{n} & = \frac{3n-1}{2} \begin{cases} \color{#D61F06}{n = \text{even}} & \implies 3n - 1 \text{ is odd} & \color{#D61F06}{\implies n \not{|} \ S_n} \\ \color{#3D99F6}{n = \text{odd}} & \implies 3n - 1 \text{ is even} & \color{#3D99F6}{\implies n \ | \ S_n} \end{cases} \end{aligned}

Therefore, for every odd n \boxed{\text{for every odd }n} , the sum of n n consequent positive integers is always divisible by n n .

Darius B
May 10, 2016

Relevant wiki: Sum of n, n², or n³

The sum of n n consecutive numbers is only divisible by n n when n n is odd. Proof :
Sum of n n consecutive numbers = a + ( a + 1 ) + ( a + 2 ) + ( a + 3 ) . . . + ( a + ( n 1 ) ) = n a + t = 1 n 1 t = n a + ( n 1 ) 2 + ( n 1 ) 2 = n ( a + n 1 2 ) = a+(a+1)+(a+2)+(a+3) ... +(a+(n-1))=n⋅a+\sum _{ t=1 }^{ n-1 }{ t } =n⋅a+\frac { { (n-1) }^{ 2 }+(n-1) }{ 2 } =n⋅(a+\frac { n-1 }{ 2 } ) it follows that the sum of n n consecutive numbers is always divisible by n n , when n 1 n-1 is even, so that the fraction n 1 2 \frac { n-1 }{ 2 } becomes an integer. Therefore the sum of n n consecutive numbers is only divisible by n n when n n is odd. _\square

Thanks for sharing this problem, Darius. It is an interesting problem and the solution is nicely written too.

Pranshu Gaba - 5 years, 1 month ago
David Castillo
May 24, 2016

With n n odd the sum S n S_n of the first n n elements is divisible by n n , because n + 1 n+1 is even and S n = n ( n + 1 ) 2 = n k S_n = \frac{n(n+1)}{2} = nk , with k k integer, so "No values of n n satisfy this condition" is discarded. With n = 2 n = 2 the sum of every two consecutive elements will be odd, then "for every n n " and "for every even n n " are discarded. Therefore the answer is "for every odd n n ".

I know this is not a very nice solution.

So your sum S n S_n would be 1 + 2 + 3 + . . . + n 1+2+3+...+n but the question is about consecutive numbers in general and not the sum over the integers up to a certain number n n . Therefore you would need to do it somehow like S ( a , b ) = ( 1 + 2 + 3 + . . . + a ) ( 1 + 2 + 3 + . . . + b ) = a ( a + 1 ) b ( b + 1 ) 2 = a 2 b 2 + a b 2 S(a,b)=(1+2+3+...+a)-(1+2+3+...+b)=\frac{a(a+1)-b(b+1)}{2}=\frac{a^2-b^2+a-b}{2}

Darius B - 5 years ago

Log in to reply

Oh, you're right. I mistakenly thought about " there exists consecutive ..." instead of " for all consecutive ...".

David Castillo - 5 years ago

0 pending reports

×

Problem Loading...

Note Loading...

Set Loading...