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Cubeless? (Posted on 2004-08-29) Difficulty: 3 of 5
Prove that for any positive integer n, there exists at least one multiple of 5^n that doesn't have any perfect cube digits (0, 1, or 8) in its decimal representation.

  Submitted by Federico Kereki    
Rating: 3.4000 (5 votes)
Solution: (Hide)
Call N=5^n. Start analyzing its digits from right to left. Each time you find a zero, one or eight (say, at the Mth position) add N times 10^M; this will make the cube digit disappear (it will change to 5, 6 or 3) without affecting the digits to the right of the Mth place.

Keep on doing this until the rightmost n digits are non-zero. At that time, you'll have a multiple of N that can be expressed as X.10^n+Y, and Y has no 0's, 1's or 8's in it. As the sum is a multiple of N, and X*10^n is also a multiple of N, it follows that Y must be a multiple of N, so Y is a number as we wanted.

Comments: ( You must be logged in to post comments.)
  Subject Author Date
SolutionPuzzle SolutionK Sengupta2007-06-12 11:13:15
Getting ThereBruce Brantley2004-10-16 10:11:34
UnderstandableBruce Brantley2004-09-20 10:45:26
re(2): Similar solutionCharlie2004-08-30 10:54:23
re: Similar solutionCharlie2004-08-30 10:42:26
SolutionSimilar solutione.g.2004-08-30 08:35:32
Just a thoughtBruce Brantley2004-08-29 14:37:38
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