Throwing away!

In this case the title is only a clue.

In a number base, b b , apply the following throwingAway procedure on a number n n : while the current version of n n is greater or equal to b b , replace n n with the sum of its digits in base b b arithmetic. If the single digit result is equal to b 1 b-1 , then replace that result with 0 0 .

Two examples:

n = 57 n=57 and b = 10 b=10 , since 57 10 57\geq 10 , add 5 + 7 12 5+7\Longrightarrow 12 , since 12 10 12\geq 10 , add 1 + 2 3 1+2\Longrightarrow 3 , since 3 10 3\ngeq 10 , the answer is 3 3 .

n = DEADC0DE 16 n=\text{DEADC0DE}_{16} and b = 10 16 b={10}_{16} , since DEADC0DE 16 10 16 \text{DEADC0DE}_{16}\geq {10}_{16} , add D 16 + E 16 + A 16 + D 16 + C 16 + 0 16 + D 16 + E 16 5 9 16 \text{D}_{16}+\text{E}_{16}+\text{A}_{16}+\text{D}_{16}+\text{C}_{16}+\text{0}_{16}+\text{D}_{16}+\text{E}_{16}\Longrightarrow 59_{16} , since 5 9 16 10 16 59_{16}\geq {10}_{16} , add 5 16 + 9 16 E 16 5_{16}+9_{16}\Longrightarrow \text{E}_{16} , since E 16 10 \text{E}_{16}\ngeq 10 , the answer is E 16 \text{E}_{16} .

Next, form a histogram of applying the throwingAway procedure in base 60 to all positive integers from 1 to ( 10 60 ) 6 1 ({10}_{60})^6-1 .

Select the most frequently occurring answer, if more than digit is the most frequent, then any will do.

The answer is the frequency selected. What is that frequency?


The answer is 790779661.

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

In base 10 10 , the throwingAway procedure is called "casting away nines", hence the title of the problem.

Regardless of base b b , the integers from 1 1 to b m 1 b^m-1 distribute evenly under the throwAway procedure, resulting in a frequency per digit in that base of i = 0 m 1 b i \sum_{i=0}^{m-1}\,b^i , which when written in base b b results in an integer of m m 1s. In the case of this problem, 11111 1 60 = 79077966 1 10 111111_{60}=790779661_{10} .

0 pending reports

×

Problem Loading...

Note Loading...

Set Loading...