Maths Olympiad Prep

Track / Stage 3 / 72 of 260 #72 of 1964

Problem 72

AMC 10/12, early questions
Number theory Difficulty 3.3 Multiple choice

Which of the following numbers is a perfect square?
$\$\mathrm{}

Pick one

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Official solution

Using the fact that n!=n(n1)!n! = n\cdot (n-1)!, we can write:
A=98!(9998!)=99(98!)2=1132(98!)2B=10099(98!)2=1110232(98!)2C=100(99!)2=102(99!)2D=101100(99!)2=101102(99!)2E=101(100!)2\begin{align} A&=98! \cdot (99\cdot 98!) = 99 \cdot (98!)^2 = 11\cdot3^2\cdot(98!)^2 \\ B&=100 \cdot 99 \cdot (98!)^2 = 11\cdot10^2\cdot3^2\cdot( 98!)^2 \\ C&=100\cdot (99!)^2 = 10^2\cdot (99!)^2\\ D&=101\cdot 100\cdot (99!)^2 = 101 \cdot 10^2 \cdot (99!)^2\\ E& =101\cdot (100!)^2 \end{align}
We see that (C) 99!100!\boxed{\mathrm{(C) \ } 99! \cdot 100!} is a square, and because 1111, and 101101 are primes, none of the other four choices are squares.

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