Maths Olympiad Prep

Track / Stage 5 / 1 of 400 #601 of 1964

Problem 601

AIME late
Number theory Difficulty 5.0 Find the answer

What number does not change when raised to a power? What number retains its absolute value when raised to any positive integer power?

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

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Official solution

123. The only common roots of all equations of the type xn=x(n=1,2,3)x^{n}=x(n=1,2,3 \ldots) are 1 and 0. Any complex number of the form cosα+isinα\cos \alpha+i \sin \alpha (and therefore especially the numbers: 1,i-1, i and i-i) always retains its absolute value when raised to any power.

Source: NuminaMath-1.5, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty, ordering) added by this project.