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2018 AMC 12B Problem 24

Problem 24 of 25HarderAlgebraCounting & Probability

Let x\lfloor x\rfloor denote the greatest integer less than or equal to x.x. How many real numbers xx satisfy the equation x2+10,000x=10,000x?x^2+10{,}000\lfloor x\rfloor=10{,}000x?

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Solution

Let {x}=xx.\{x\}=x-\lfloor x\rfloor. The equation becomes x2=10,000{x},x^2=10{,}000\{x\}, so x210,000={x}.\tfrac{x^2}{10{,}000}=\{x\}. Since 0{x}<1,0\le\{x\}\lt1, we need 0x2<10,000,0\le x^2\lt10{,}000, i.e. 100<x<100.-100\lt x\lt100. On each interval [k,k+1),[k,k+1), write x=k+tx=k+t with 0t<1.0\le t\lt1. The equation becomes (k+t)210,000t=0.(k+t)^2-10{,}000t=0. For 100k98,-100\le k\le98, the left side is strictly decreasing; at t=0t=0 it is k20,k^2\ge0, while as tt approaches 11 it approaches (k+1)210,000<0.(k+1)^2-10{,}000\lt0. Thus each of these intervals contains exactly one solution. There are 98(100)+1=19998-(-100)+1=199 such intervals. Thus, the correct answer is C.

More practice

Concepts: floor and ceiling functions · counting intersections

Problem text and solution from the LIVE past-contest archive. See also the AoPS wiki page for community solutions.