Primes and bases

If the right-most digit D D of any prime number P P is represented in a base B B such that 0 < B < P 0 < B < P

What is the minimum value of D D ?

P 1 B 3 4 5 2 0

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.

1 solution

The minimum value of D D is 1 because of the following:

If P P could be represented in base B B with D = 0 D = 0 , then this implies that P P is divisible by B B because if P P is represented in base B B as A C F E D A C F E 0 ACFED \rightarrow ACFE0 then A C F E 0 B = A C F E \frac{ACFE0}{B} = ACFE

Therefore

D = 0 D = 0 implies that P P is divisible by a number other then 1 and itself, which contradicts the definition of a prime number

Therefore

The minimum value of D D is 1

I apologize for my lack of skill with LaTeX by the way haha

0 pending reports

×

Problem Loading...

Note Loading...

Set Loading...