Where is the pattern?

Let P P be product of all positive integers less than 720 which are relatively prime to 720. What is the remainder when P 2 P^2 is divided by 720?


The answer is 1.

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6 solutions

Veides Kasera
Jan 4, 2018

I found ϕ ( 720 ) = 192 \phi(720)=192 , and since P P is the product of all of those 192 relatively prime numbers to 720, P must also be relatively prime to 720 720 since they share no common factors. Then using Euler's theorem, P 192 1 ( m o d 720 ) P^{192}\equiv1\pmod{720} , and then it's easy to see that ( P 2 ) 96 1 ( m o d 720 ) (P^{2})^{96}\equiv1\pmod{720} or P 2 1 ( m o d 720 ) {P^{2}\equiv1\pmod{720}} hence the remainder is 1 \boxed1 .

Edit:

The modular inverses approach is most accurate.. Since there is a slight inaccuracy in the above solution (taking the 96 t h 96th root on both sides of the modular expression can yield solutions other than 1 1 , although there aren't any) I'm trying an alternative approach using the Chinese Remainder Theorem and Carmichael function. Please feel free to correct me. I'm not sure if this is correct..

The Carmichael function λ ( n ) {\lambda(n)} states that a λ ( n ) 1 ( m o d n ) a^{\lambda(n)}\equiv1\pmod{n} when a a and n n are coprime and a < n a<n . Let a 1 , a 2 , a 3 , a n a_1, a_2, a_3, \ldots a_n be all of the numbers which are relatively prime to 720. We get congruences such as

  • a 1 λ ( 720 ) 1 ( m o d 720 ) a_1^{\lambda{(720)}}\equiv1\pmod{720}
  • a 2 λ ( 720 ) 1 ( m o d 720 ) a_2^{\lambda{(720)}}\equiv1\pmod{720}
  • a 3 λ ( 720 ) 1 ( m o d 720 ) a_3^{\lambda{(720)}}\equiv1\pmod{720} ...
  • a n λ ( 720 ) 1 ( m o d 720 ) a_n^{\lambda{(720)}}\equiv1\pmod{720}

and then we can multiply all of the separate modular congruences to obtain

( a 1 12 a 2 12 a 3 12 a n 12 ) = P 12 1 ( m o d 720 ) (a_1^{12} a_2^{12} a_3^{12}\ldots a_n^{12})=P^{12}\equiv1\pmod{720} .

Now, we need to scale down from P 12 P^{12} to P 2 P^{2} . To do this, we can see that 720 = 16 × 9 × 5 720=16\times9\times5 and λ ( 16 ) = 4 {\lambda(16)}=4 , λ ( 9 ) = 6 {\lambda(9)}=6 , λ ( 5 ) = 4 {\lambda(5)}=4 .

We can write the congruences as

  • P λ ( 16 ) 1 ( m o d 16 ) P^{\lambda(16)}\equiv1\pmod{16} which gives P 4 1 ( m o d 16 ) P^{4}\equiv1\pmod{16}
  • P λ ( 9 ) 1 ( m o d 9 ) P^{\lambda(9)}\equiv1\pmod{9} which gives P 6 1 ( m o d 9 ) P^{6}\equiv1\pmod{9}
  • P λ ( 5 ) 1 ( m o d 5 ) P^{\lambda(5)}\equiv1\pmod{5} which gives P 4 1 ( m o d 5 ) P^{4}\equiv1\pmod{5}

As P is the product of all integers relatively prime to 720, P must also be coprime to 16, 9 and 5.

The expressions, upon solving for the residues of P 2 P^{2} , yield

  • P 2 1 , 7 , 9 , 15 ( m o d 16 ) P^{2}\equiv1, 7, 9, 15\pmod{16}
  • P 2 1 , 4 , 7 ( m o d 9 ) P^{2}\equiv1, 4, 7\pmod{9}
  • P 2 1 , 4 ( m o d 5 ) P^{2}\equiv1, 4\pmod{5} .

Now we see that for P P to exist, P 2 P^{2} has to be congruent to 1 1 for all three modulos, since if P 2 P^{2} is congruent to say, for example, 9 for the first, 4 for the second and 1 for the third, upon solving we would obtain no value of P P satisfying all three congruences.

  • P 2 1 ( m o d 16 ) P^{2}\equiv1\pmod{16}
  • P 2 1 ( m o d 9 ) P^{2}\equiv1\pmod{9}
  • P 2 1 ( m o d 5 ) P^{2}\equiv1\pmod{5}

Then after solving these three congruences simultaneously, we obtain the final answer of P 2 1 ( m o d 720 ) {P^{2}\equiv1\pmod{720}} .

Did the same way...

Anubhav Mahapatra - 3 years, 4 months ago

Could you please explain the last step. Why is it easy to see that ( P 2 ) 96 1 ( m o d 720 ) (P^2)^{96} \equiv 1 \pmod{720} or P 2 1 ( m o d 720 ) P^2 \equiv 1 \pmod {720} ?

Alexander Zwink - 3 years, 3 months ago

DID THE SAME WAY

Tarun Gupta - 2 years, 11 months ago

If the question was asking for the remainder of P when divided by 720, then this solution would yield two possible solutions: 1 and -1. So isn’t this method only applicable when finding the remainder of P to an even power?

Kevelya Koppa - 2 years, 8 months ago
Dylan Pentland
Jul 4, 2015

( a P a ) 2 ( m o d n ) 1 { \left( \prod _{ a\in P }^{ \quad }{ a } \right) }^{ 2 } \pmod{n} \equiv 1

Yes, it's true for any mod! This is because elements of P P may be classified in two ways:

(1) a 2 = 1 a^2=1 . These elements are their own multiplicative inverses, and when the product is squared the do not contribute anything.

(2) a b = 1 ab=1 . If a a has a multiplicative inverse, it is necessarily in P P . Otherwise, b b would have some factor of n n in it and could only be a multiple of that when multiplied by another element, thus the product could not one. In addition, if a a has a multiplicative inverse in P P is it unique to a a .

Consider the existence of another multiplicative inverse to a a , c c . Then by writing down multiples of a a we run into two ones. These two ones ought to be the same distance from a 0: equality is preserved going backwards, and we know that if b < c b<c then by going backwards from both b b times we reach zero for both. Yet there exists only one zero at a × 0 a\times0 because a P a\in P . Thus b = c b=c .


Okeydoke, now that that's all done we can just pair multiplicative inverses to get all 1's for those and squaring 1 gives 1, and then by adding all a a with a 2 = 1 a^2=1 we still have 1 for the product.

In short, we can say that the elements in P P form the multiplicative group of integers modulo n n . Hence every element in P P has its inverse and thus the product is unity.

Abhishek Sinha - 5 years, 11 months ago
Aditya Sahu
Dec 2, 2015

here is the solution of the problem in a image bello w

Why the reminder when p^2|720 = the reminder when p^2|10

Khánh Hưng Vũ - 4 years, 10 months ago

Explain it....

Anubhav Mahapatra - 3 years, 8 months ago
Alvann Paredes Dy
Aug 26, 2020

For any integer n in P, there exists a unique integer m also in P such that nm ≡ 1 (mod 720). (note that n and m could be equal).

Since there are an even number of integers being multiplied in the product P², we can group the integers in pairs such that every pair has a product of 1 (mod 720), and the product of all pairs is therefore 1 \boxed{1} .

Bogdan Simeonov
Jul 9, 2015

Since the polynomial ( x a 1 ) ( x a 2 ) . . . ( x a φ ( 720 ) ) x φ ( 720 ) 1 ( m o d 720 ) (x-a_1)(x-a_2)...(x-a_{\varphi(720)})\equiv x^{\varphi(720)}-1\pmod{720} , where a_i is a reduced residue system, we can plug in x=0.

what theorem is that? :) ... Well, the polynomial identity, I assume it's a theorem, or something like that, I'm asking for future reference mostly

Jose Ramirez - 4 years, 3 months ago
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def gcd(a, b):
    if a < b:
        spam = a
    else:
        spam = b

    while spam > 1:
        if a%spam == 0 and b%spam == 0:
            return spam
        spam -= 1

    return 1

foo = 1
for a in range(1,720):
    if gcd(a,720) == 1:
        foo *= a

foo = foo*foo

print foo%720

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