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AMC 12 Mock Exam 3 Problem 17

Problem 17 of 25

Kai computes each of the 100100 numbers (21), (42), (63), …, (200100)\dbinom21,\ \dbinom42,\ \dbinom63,\ \ldots,\ \dbinom{200}{100}, that is, (2nn)\dbinom{2n}{n} for n=1,2,…,100n=1,2,\ldots,100. How many of these 100100 numbers are not divisible by 44?

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Solution

By Legendre's formula, v2(m!)=⌊m/2⌋+⌊m/4⌋+⋯=m−s(m)v_2(m!)=\lfloor m/2\rfloor+\lfloor m/4\rfloor+\cdots=m-s(m), where s(m)s(m) is the number of 11's in the binary representation of mm. (Each 11 in position jj contributes 2j−1+2j−2+⋯+1=2j−12^{j-1}+2^{j-2}+\cdots+1=2^j-1.) Since doubling does not change the binary digit sum, v2(2nn)=v2((2n)!)−2v2(n!)=(2n−s(n))−2(n−s(n))=s(n).v_2\binom{2n}{n}=v_2((2n)!)-2v_2(n!)=\bigl(2n-s(n)\bigr)-2\bigl(n-s(n)\bigr)=s(n). So (2nn)\binom{2n}n is not divisible by 44 exactly when s(n)≤1s(n)\le1, i.e., when nn is a power of 22. For 1≤n≤1001\le n\le100 these are 1,2,4,8,16,32,641,2,4,8,16,32,64: 7\boxed{7} values.

Tagged: 2-adic valuation of central binomial coefficients