Pairs of Coprime Integers

Products are found by multiplying three different numbers from the set {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}. Among these products, how many pairs of relatively prime numbers are there?


The answer is 1.

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

Finn Hulse
Feb 17, 2014

Because the problem asks for the product of three different numbers, that means that one number will have to be shared by both. Because we're looking for coprime numbers, the only common factor that they can have is 1. Note that 2 and 4 must be in the same product, because otherwise the two numbers will share a common factor of 2. We see that one of the numbers must be 1 × 2 × 4 1 \times 2 \times 4 , which means that the other must be 1 × 3 × 5 1 \times 3 \times 5 . We see that this is the only pair that satisfies the condition, therefore the answer is 1.

Note that the only odd product is 1 3 5 = 15 1 \cdot 3 \cdot 5 = 15 . It is clear that any pair of even integers is not coprime. So, what is left to us is to check which of the other 9 9 products are not divisible by 3 3 or 5 5 . The only product with that condition is 1 2 4 = 8 1\cdot 2\cdot 4 = 8 , and thus, the answer is 1 \boxed {1} .

Rahul Bothra
May 6, 2014

As 1 of the numbers is going to repeat in the pair of three, it can't be any number other than one or else they won't be relatively prime. Now, if one of the pairs has got 2 in itself, the other one can't have 2 nor can have 4. So the first pair will have to have 4 in itself. So, the only pair formed will be - 1×2×4 and 1×3×5 will be its corresponding pair.

0 pending reports

×

Problem Loading...

Note Loading...

Set Loading...