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Mock AIME 4 2006-2007 Problems/Problem 1

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Problem

Albert starts to make a list, in increasing order, of the positive integers that have a first digit of 1. He writes 1, 10, 11, 12, \ldots but by the 1,000th digit he (finally) realizes that the list would contain an infinite number of elements. Find the three-digit number formed by the last three digits he wrote (the 998th, 999th, and 1000th digits, in that order).

Solution

It is clear that his list begins with 1 one-digit integer, 10 two-digits integers, and 100 three-digit integers, making a total of 321 digits.

So he needs another 1000-321=629 digits before he stops. He can accomplish this by writing 169 four-digit numbers for a total of 321+4(169)=997 digits. The last of these 169 four-digit numbers is 1168, so the next three digits will be 116.

See also

Mock AIME 4 2006-2007 (Problems, Source)
Preceded by
First question
Followed by
Problem 2
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
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