AoPSWiki
Visit the AoPS Book Store.

2000 AIME I Problems/Problem 1

From AoPSWiki

Problem

Find the least positive integer n such that no matter how 10^{n} is expressed as the product of any two positive integers, at least one of these two integers contains the digit 0.

Solution

If a factor of 10^{n} has a 2 and a 5 in its prime factorization, then that factor will end in a 0. Therefore, we have left to consider the case when the two factors have the 2s and the 5s separated, in other words whether 2^n or 5^n produces a 0 first.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Powers of 2: 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 256 512 1\boxed{0}24
Powers of 5: 5 25 125 625 3125 15625 78125 39\boxed{0}625

We see that 5^8 generates the first zero, so the answer is \boxed{008}.

See also

2000 AIME I (ProblemsResources)
Preceded by
First Question
Followed by
Problem 2
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Want to learn how to tackle those tough AMC/AIME/Olympiad algebra problems? Check out Art of Problem Solving's Intermediate Algebra by Richard Rusczyk and Mathew Crawford. Over 1600 problems!
© Copyright 2008 AoPS Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. • FoundationPrivacyContact Us