Publication: The Times Of India Chennai;Date: Aug 11, 2008;Section: Education Times;Page: 30

THE FACTORIAL FACTS

How many questions do you plan to do in each area of Quants before you go for the CAT?
How many passages on Reading Comprehension do you intend to solve before you take the CAT?
How many questions on areas like Reasoning, Data Inter pretation etc do you intend to solve prior to taking the CAT?
In today's edition I will take you through the concept of Factorials and I will discuss some of their important properties. A
thorough understanding of Factorials is important because they play a pivotal role not only in understanding concepts in
Numbers but also other important topics like Permutation and Combination.
Definition of Factorial N! = 1*2*3**(n-1)*n Eg 1) 5!= 1*2*3*4*5=120 eg 2) 3!=1*2*3=6
Let us now look at the application of Factorials
1) Highest power in a factorial or in a product
Questions based on highest power in a factorial are seen year after year in CAT. Questions based on this can be categorized
based on the nature of the number (prime or composite) whose highest power we are finding in the factorial, i.e
a) Highest power of a prime number in a factorial:
To find the highest power of a prime number (x) in a factorial (N!), continuously divide N by x and add all the quotients.
Eg ) The highest power of 5 in 100!
Solution: 100/5=20; 20/5=4; Adding the quotients, its 20+4=24. So highest power of 5 in 100! = 24 ALTERNATIVE METHOD
100/5 + 100/52 =20+4=24 (We take upto 52 as it is the highest power of 5 which is less than 100)
b) Highest power of a composite number in factorial
Factorize the number into primes. Find the highest power of all the prime numbers in that factorial using the previous method.
Take the least power.
Finding the number of zeroes forms the base concept for a number of Eg) To find the highest power of 10 in 100!
application questions. In base 10, number of zeros in the end depends on the Solution: Factorize 10=5*2. number of 10s; i.e.
effectively, on the number of 5s 1. Highest power of 5 in 100! =24 2. Highest power of 2 in In base N, number of zeroes in the
end highest power of N in that 100! =97 product Therefore, the answer will be 24, because to get a 10, you need a pair of 2
and 5, and only 24 such pairs are available. So take the Eg ) Find the number of zeroes in 13! In base 10 lesser i.e. 24 is the
answer. Solution: We need to effectively find the highest power of 10 in 13! = Highest
power of 5 in 13! As this power will be lesser. 13/5=2
Eg) Highest power of 12 in 100! Solution: 12=22 *3. Find the highest power of 22 and 3 in 100! Eg ) Find the number of zeroes
in the end of 15! in base 12.
2 First find out the highest power of 2. Solution: Highest power of 12 in 15! =highest power of 2 *3 in 15! =Highest Listing
out the quotients:100/2 = 50; 50/2 = 25; 25/2 = 12; 12/2 = power of 3 in 15!= 5 6; 6/2 = 3; 3/2 = 1 Highest power of 2 = 50 + 25
+ 12 + 6 + 3 + 1 = 97 3) Number of factors of any factorial So highest power of 22 = 48 (out of 97 2's only 48 can make 22 )
There is a technique, which can be used to find the number of factors in a Now for the highest power of 3. 100/3 = 33; 33/3 =
11; 11/3 = 3; factorial 3/3 = 1; E.g. Find the factors of 12! Highest power of 3 = 48 Highest power of 12 = 48 STEP 1: Prime
factorize 12! i.e. find out the highest power of all prime factors
10 5 2
till 12 ( i.e. 2,3,5,7,11). 12! = 2 *3 *5 *7*11
2) Number of zeros in the end of a factorial or a product STEP2: Use the formula
BYJU RAVEENDRAN OFFERS A COMPREHENSIVE PERSPECTIVE ON FACTORIALS AND THEIR RELEVANCE IN
IMPORTANT TOPICS OF THE QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS SECTION IN CAT ...

m n N=a *b (a, b are the prime factors) Then number of factors= (m+1)(n+1)
The number of factors= (10+1)(5+1)(2+1)(1+1)(1+1) =792 Answer=792
4) Right most non zero integer in a factorial E.g.Find the right most non zero integer in 25! ? OR Find the remainder when 25!
is divided by 107 ?( Both the questions are conceptually the same)
There are 6 zeroes at the end of 25!. Effectively we need to find the rightmost non-zero integer in 25!. Number of 2s in 25! =
25/2+12/2+6/2+3/2 = 12+6+3+1=22 Number of 3s in 25! = 25/3 + 8/3 = 8+2=10 Number of 5s in 25! = 25/5+5/1 =6 Number of
7s in 25! =25/7=3 Number of 11s in 25! =2 Number of 13s,17s,19s,23s in 25! =1 Remove 26 x56 . (form the 6 zeroes)
Right most non zero digit will be last digit of 216 310 73 112 .131 .171 .191 .231 = 6.9.3.1.3.7.9.3 = __4. Answer is 4.
A shortcut to solve the above question.
If you know the unit digit in the product 1!*2!*3!*10! = 8 and Unit digit in the product 11!*12*13*..20! = 8.then
the answer is in one line as follows. 8*8*1*2*3 = Answer 4.This short cut method takes just 30 seconds.
APPLICATION QUESTION BASED ON FACTORIAL How many natural numbers are there such that their factorials are
ending with 5 zeroes?
10! is 1*2*3*4*(5)*6*7*8*9*(2*5). From this we can see that highest power of 5 till 10! is 2. Continuing like this, 10!-14!, highest
power of 5 will be 2. The next 5 will be obtained at 15 = (5*3). Therefore, from 15! To 19! - The highest power of 5 will be 3.
20!-24! - Highest Power = 4, In 25, we are getting one extra five, as 25=5*5. Therefore, 25! to 29!, we will get highest power of
5 as 6. The answer to the question is therefore, 0. There are no natural numbers whose factorials end with 5 zeroes. As
mentioned before, Factorials have some important applications; and understanding them will prove beneficial for your CAT
preparation. In my next article, I will discuss some more important concepts that will bring your focus to the most relevant
concepts and techniques for this highly competitive exam
The writer is a CAT topper and has been training CAT aspirants
in 7 cities across India into the IIMs and other B-Schools