2019 AMC 10A Problem 25

Attempt Problem 25 of the 2019 AMC 10A below, then check your answer against the professionally curated solution from LIVE by Po-Shen Loh. You can also try the full timed exam, view all 2019 AMC 10A solutions, or check the answer key.

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25.

For how many integers nn between 11 and 50,50, inclusive, is (n21)!(n!)n\dfrac{(n^2-1)!}{(n!)^n} an integer? (Recall that 0!=1.0! = 1.)

3131

3232

3333

3434

3535

Answer: D
Concepts:factorialdivisibilityprime
Difficulty rating: 2150
Solution:

One fact that greatly helps with this problem is realizing that (n2)!(n!)n+1 \dfrac{(n^2)!}{(n!)^{n + 1}} is always an integer.

This is because it is the number of ways to split up n2n^2 objects into nn unordered groups of size n.n.

Now, we get that (n21)!(n!)n=(n2)!(n!)n+1n!n2. \dfrac{(n^2 - 1)!}{(n!)^n} = \dfrac{(n^2)!}{(n!)^{n + 1}} \cdot \dfrac{n!}{n^2}.

Therefore, whenever n2n^2 divides n!,n!, the original expression is an integer; this is equivalent to nn dividing (n1)!.(n - 1)!.

Suppose nn is composite. If n=abn=ab with 2a<b<n2\le a<b<n, then the distinct factors aa and bb both occur in (n1)!(n-1)!, so n(n1)!n\mid(n-1)!. If n=a2n=a^2 with a3a\ge3, then (n1)!(n-1)! contains the distinct factors aa and 2a2a, whose product is a multiple of nn. Thus every composite n4n\ne4 works. The case n=1n=1 also works directly.

Conversely, if n=pn=p is prime, the exponent of pp in the denominator is p,p, while its exponent in (p21)!(p^2-1)! is p1,p-1, so the expression is not an integer.

For n=4,n=4, the denominator contains 212,2^{12}, while 15!15! contains only 211,2^{11}, so this case also fails.

There are 1515 primes at most 50,50, and adding 4,4, we get 1616 values for nn that do not work.

Therefore, the desired answer is 5016=34.50 - 16 = 34.

Thus, D is the correct answer.

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