All about flooble | fun stuff | Get a free chatterbox | Free JavaScript | Avatars    
perplexus dot info

Home > Numbers
String of 3s (Posted on 2025-05-16) Difficulty: 3 of 5
A number written as a string of 32013 digit 3s. No other digit appears. Find the highest power of 3 which divides this number.

No Solution Yet Submitted by Danish Ahmed Khan    
No Rating

Comments: ( Back to comment list | You must be logged in to post comments.)
Some Thoughts A methodology | Comment 4 of 6 |
I think our large number is divisible by 81.

Consider the fractions you get from 1/3^n
Start with 1/27: 0.037037037037037...     it has period 3
Take a number of iterations of 037, say 5 iterations.
037037037037037  which is 15 digits
Drop the leading zero and multiply by 9 (one less power of 3 than our fraction). 
Result:   333333333333333 which is 15 digits

This should work for any length which is a multiple of 3.  They should all be divisible by 9.

What about 1/81:  .0123456790123456789 etc  period 10
but multiplying this by 27 yields strings of 17 3s followed by 1 zero.

What about 1/243:  (thanks to full precision calculator)
0.004115226337448559670781893
004115226337448559670781893
etc with period 27
4115226337448559670781893*81 =
    333333333333333333333333333  (27 digits)

But if you do multiple copies of the 27 digits, 004115226337448559670781893, delete the 2 leading zeros and multiply by 81 you get a string of 3s of length 27k where k is the number of copies.
So for any length of 3s that is a multiple of 27, it should be divisible by 81.

Is 3^2013 a multiple of 27?  
Yes 3^2013 = 27 * 3^2010
So I believe a string of 3^2013 3s should be divisible by 3^4

This procedure might be continued, but I cannot explain why it worked for 1/27 and 1/243 but not 1/81.

Maybe it works on every other power.  Maybe it only works if the repeating decimal has a period which is a multiple of 3. ??

More testing needed.

  Posted by Larry on 2025-05-17 14:10:02
Please log in:
Login:
Password:
Remember me:
Sign up! | Forgot password


Search:
Search body:
Forums (0)
Newest Problems
Random Problem
FAQ | About This Site
Site Statistics
New Comments (5)
Unsolved Problems
Top Rated Problems
This month's top
Most Commented On

Chatterbox:
Copyright © 2002 - 2025 by Animus Pactum Consulting. All rights reserved. Privacy Information