Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /152 of 165

Algebra Difficulty 3.2 AMC 10/12 Find the answer

If nn is a positive integer, the notation nn! (read " nn factorial") is used to represent the product of the integers from 1 to nn. That is, n!=n(n1)(n2)(3)(2)(1)n!=n(n-1)(n-2) \cdots(3)(2)(1). For example, 4!=4(3)(2)(1)=244!=4(3)(2)(1)=24 and 1!=11!=1. If aa and bb are positive integers with b>ab>a, what is the ones (units) digit of b!ab!-a! that cannot be?

A number or a short expression. Fractions can be typed as 3/2, and spacing doesn't matter.

Solution

The first few values of nn! are

1!=12!=2(1)=23!=3(2)(1)=64!=4(3)(2)(1)=245!=5(4)(3)(2)(1)=120\begin{aligned} & 1!=1 \\ & 2!=2(1)=2 \\ & 3!=3(2)(1)=6 \\ & 4!=4(3)(2)(1)=24 \\ & 5!=5(4)(3)(2)(1)=120 \end{aligned}

We note that

2!1!=14!1!=233!1!=55!1!=119\begin{aligned} & 2!-1!=1 \\ & 4!-1!=23 \\ & 3!-1!=5 \\ & 5!-1!=119 \end{aligned}

This means that if aa and bb are positive integers with b>ab>a, then 1,3,5,91,3,5,9 are all possible ones (units) digits of b!a!b!-a!. This means that the only possible answer is choice (D), or 7. To be complete, we explain why 7 cannot be the ones (units) digit of b!a!b!-a!. For b!a!b!-a! to be odd, one of b!b! and a!a! is even and one of them is odd. The only odd factorial is 1!, since every other factorial has a factor of 2. Since b>ab>a, then if one of aa and bb is 1, we must have a=1a=1. For the ones (units) digit of b!1b!-1 to be 7, the ones (units) digit of bb! must be 8. This is impossible as the first few factorials are shown above and every greater factorial has a ones (units) digit of 0, because it is a multiple of both 2 and 5.

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

Source: Omni-MATH, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.