A Sheer Multiplication Of Numbers

Danny wrote the following product:

1 ! × 2 ! × 3 ! × × 119 ! × 120 ! \large 1! \times 2! \times 3! \times \cdots \times 119! \times 120!

He took out one of the following factorials and found that the product had become a perfect square. Find the factorial.

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

1 ! 1! 59 ! 59! 60 ! 60! 120 ! 120!

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1 solution

Anish Harsha
Jul 9, 2016

Relevant wiki: Factorials Problem Solving - Intermediate

Consider the factorial : 1 ! × 2 ! × × 119 ! × 120 ! 1!\times 2!\times \ldots \times 119!\times 120!

If we group the factorials into pairs, then we can factor out a ( n ! ) 2 (n !)^2 from each pair n ! × ( n + 1 ) ! n!\times (n+1)!

Then, what is left is ( 2 × 4 × 120 ) k 2 (2\times 4\times \ldots 120)k^2 , where k 2 = ( 1 ! ) 2 × ( 119 ! ) 2 k^2= (1!)^2\times \ldots (119!)^2 .

So, now we need to just look at 2 × 4 × 120 = 2 60 ( 60 ! ) 2\times 4\times \ldots 120 = 2^{60}(60!) , so the entire expression is k 2 × 2 60 × 60 ! = ( 2 30 k ) 2 × 60 ! k^2\times 2^{60} \times 60!= (2^{30}k)^2 \times 60! .

So, we see that if we take out a 60 ! 60! , then the rest of the expression would form a perfect square. So, our desired answer is 60 ! 60!

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