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2002 AIME I Problems/Problem 3

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Problem

Jane is 25 years old. Dick is older than Jane. In n years, where n is a positive integer, Dick's age and Jane's age will both be two-digit number and will have the property that Jane's age is obtained by interchanging the digits of Dick's age. Let d be Dick's present age. How many ordered pairs of positive integers (d,n) are possible?

Solution

Let Jane's age n years from now be 10a+b, and let Dick's age be 10b+a. If 10b+a>10a+b, then b>a. The possible pairs of a,b are:

(1,2), (1,3), (2,3), (1,4), (2,4), (3,4), \dots , (8,9)

That makes 36. But 10a+b>25, so we subtract all the extraneous pairs: (1,2), (1,3), (2,3), (1,4), (2,4), (1,5), (2,5), (1,6), (1,7), (1,8), and (1,9). 36-11=\boxed{025}

See also

2002 AIME I (ProblemsResources)
Preceded by
Problem 2
Followed by
Problem 4
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
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