Number on a blackboard

George writes a positive integer a a on a blackboard. As long as there is a number on the blackboard, he does the following each day:

• If the last digit in the number on the blackboard is less than or equal to 5, he erases that last digit. (If there is only this digit, the blackboard thus becomes empty.)

• Otherwise he erases the entire number and writes 9 times the number.

For what values of a a will the blackboard never become empty?

Give your answer as the sum of all possible a s a's . If you think there are no a s a's for which this is possible then write 0.


The answer is 0.

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1 solution

Jordan Cahn
Jan 9, 2019

Lemma: If the last digit of n n is greater than 5 then the last digit of 9 n 9n is less than or equal to 5.
Proof: Let d d be the last digit of n n . Then the last digit of 9 n 9n is the same as the last digit of 9 d 9d . But 9 d { 54 , 63 , 72 , 81 } 9d \in \{54,63,72,81\} . \square

Clearly, all a < 5 a<5 will become zero. Assume that, for all a < N a<N , a a eventually leaves the blackboard empty. If the last digit of N N is less than or equal to 5, it will be erased and on day two we will have a number smaller than N N which, by assumption, will eventually give us an empty blackboard. If the last digit of N N is greater than 5 then on day two we will have 9 N 9N which, by our lemma, will have a last digit of at most 5. Thus, on day 3, we will erase the last digit of 9 N 9N , yielding 9 N 10 \left\lfloor \frac{9N}{10} \right\rfloor . But 9 N 10 < 9 N 10 < N \left\lfloor \frac{9N}{10} \right\rfloor < \frac{9N}{10} < N and therefore, by assumption, will eventually give us an empty blackboard. By strong induction, all N N will eventually yield an empty blackboard.


Alternatively, by contradiction: assume there are integers for which we never get an empty blackboard. Then there must be a smallest such integer. But, as show above, after at most two days we will have a smaller integer on the blackboard. Contradiction.


Solved by meta-reasoning: If a a never leaves the blackboard empty, then neither will 1 0 n a 10^na for any n n . Thus, if one such a a exists, there must be infinite such a a . Therefore the sum of all such a a would diverge, and it would be impossible to input an answer. So no such a a can exist.

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