10/17/2015

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AlgebraProblemonFactors/DivisorsProblemSolving:FactorsofN^2CalvinLin|Brilliant

FactorsofN^2

Algebra Level5 395points

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Let
than

. How many positive factors of

but not a factor of ?

are less

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Youanswered188.

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MarkLao
1year,4monthsago

15

Theorem: Let
be a natural number. If
strictly less than .
Proof: If

is a factor of

Preview

has

distinct positive factors, then exactly

, then one of the numbers

is strictly less than

of them are

and the other is

strictly greater than . This allows us to split the factors of

, which are not , into 2 equal groups.
Thus, there are exactly
distinct positive factors of
that are strictly less than .
Back to the original problem, we can compute for the number of factors of
and
(read the blog post).
There are
factors of
and
factors of
. Using the above theorem, we know that
of the factors of
are strictly less than
And among these,
are factors of
(we have to exclude
itself). Hence,
factors of
are simultaneously less than N and
are not factors of .
[Slight edits for clarity - Calvin]

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CalvinLin STAFF
1year,4monthsago

The pairing used in the theorem is a great example of creating sets (bijections) to help us
count the number of occurrences.

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AnveshMuttavarapu
1year,4monthsago

https://brilliant.org/problems/factorsofn2/

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10/17/2015

AlgebraProblemonFactors/DivisorsProblemSolving:FactorsofN^2CalvinLin|Brilliant
NUMBER OF DIVISORS FOR 'N' =357 =105; NUMBER OF DIVISORS FOR 'N^2'= 5913 =585;
NUMBER OF DIVISORS FOR 'N^2' LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO 'N'= [585/2] = 293; NUMBER OF
DIVISORS FOR 'N^2' LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO 'N' AND NOT DIVISORS FOR 'N' = 293-105=188

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CalvinLin STAFF
1year,5monthsago

We have that

, so

there is another divisor of

. Thus there are

has
. Only

divisors. For every divisor

does not pair up with another divisor as

pairs of divisors, with

divisors of

that are less than

.
Clearly any divisor of
is a divisor of
, thus we subtract those that are divisors of , excluding
There are
divisors of
less than . Hence, there are
divisors of
that are less than
and are not divisors of .

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NikolaDjuric
10months,1weekago

Let A=11^ x 13^b x 17^c be Such a number.We have 26 cases: 1)a=3,b<5,c<7 There is (4+1)*
(6+1)-1=34 solutions 2)a=4,b<5,c<7 There is (4+1)(6+1)-3=32 solutions 3)b=5,a<3,c<7 (2+1)
(6+1)-2=19 4)b=6,a<3,c<7 (2+1)(6+1)-4=17 5)b=7,a<3,c<7 (2+1)(6+1)-7=14 6)b=8,a<3,c<7 (2+1)
(6+1)-9=12 7)c=7,a<3,b<5 (2+1)(4+1)-3=12 8)c=8,a<3,b<5 (2+1)(4+1)-6=9 9)c=9,a<3,b<5 (2+1)
(4+1)-9=6 10)c=10,a<3,b<5 (2+1)(4+1)-22=3 11)c=11,a<3,b<5 (2+1)(4+1)-14 12)c=12 no solutions
13)a=3,b=5,c<7 7-2=5 14)a=3,b=6,c<7 7-3=4 15)a=3,b=7,c<7 7-4=3 16)a=3,b=8,c<7 7-5=2
17)a=4,b=5,c<7 7-3=4 18)a=4,b=6,c<7 7-4=3 19)a=4,b=7,c<7 7-5=2 20)a=4,b=8,c<7 7-6=1
21)a=3,c=7,b<5 5-3=2 22)a=3,c=8,b<5 5-4=1 23)a=3,c>8,b<5 no solutions 24)a=4,c=7,b<5 5-3=2
25)a=4,c>7,b<5 no solutions 26)all other cases no solutions There is
34+32+19+17+14+12+12+9+6+3+1+5+4+3+2+4+3+2+1+2+1+2=188 Such numbers...

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