2004 AMC 12A Problem 25
Problem 25 of 25HarderAlgebraArithmetic
For each integer let denote the base- number The product can be expressed as where and are positive integers and is as small as possible. What is the value of
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Solution
Since we get
Writing and the product telescopes to
This simplifies to If then rewriting this fraction with denominator would require to divide which it does not. Hence the smallest possible is and
Thus, the correct answer is E.
Tagged: number base · telescoping · sum and difference of cubes