Uno, dos tres,... How many digits are there?

Determine the number of digits of 2015 ! 2015!

Details and Assumptions

  • 2015 ! = 2015 2014 2013 . . . 3 2 1 2015!=2015*2014*2013*...*3*2*1

If you want to do more problem like this one, try How many digits do I really have?


The answer is 5786.

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1 solution

Antony Diaz
Mar 13, 2015

We can use Stirling's Approximation: 2 π n ( n e ) n n ! e n ( n e ) n \sqrt{2\pi n} \left(\frac{n}{e}\right)^n \le n! \le e\sqrt{n} \left(\frac{n}{e}\right)^n Now take the log (base 10) of all these expressions: 1 2 log ( 2 π ) + 1 2 log n + n ( log n log e ) log n ! log e + 1 2 log n + n ( log n log e ) \frac{1}{2}\log{(2\pi)} + \frac{1}{2}\log{n} + n\left(\log{n} - \log{e}\right) \le \log{n!} \le \log{e} + \frac{1}{2}\log{n} + n\left(\log{n} - \log{e}\right) Now if we substitute n = 2015 n = 2015 and the values given, we get the following: 13320.12 log n ! 13320.59 13320.12 \le \log{n!} \le 13320.59 13321 log n ! + 1 13321 13321\le \lfloor \log{n!} \rfloor + 1 \le 13321 Now the formula for the number of digits in n ! n! is exactly log n ! + 1 \lfloor \log{n!} \rfloor + 1 . Therefore, the number of digits in 2015 ! 2015! is 13321 \boxed{13321} .

The error that you made is that the values were calculated in log base e, as opposed to log base 10. Hence, the correct answer is 5786.

Calvin Lin Staff - 6 years, 2 months ago

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