Skip to main content
OlympiadHQ

Browse · harp

Print

smc

number theory senior

Problem

The fraction where is the length of the period of the repeating decimal expansion. What is the sum ?
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
Solution
So, the answer is or . There are two things to notice here. First, has a very simple and unique decimal expansion, as shown. Second, for to itself produce a repeating decimal, has to evenly divide a sufficiently extended number of the form . This number will have ones (197 digits in total), as to be divisible by and . The enormity of this number forces us to look for a pattern, and so we divide out as shown. Indeed, upon division (seeing how the remainders always end in "501" or "601" or, at last, "9801"), we find the repeating part . If we wanted to further check our pattern, we could count the total number of digits in our quotient (not counting the first three): 195. Since , multiplying by it will produce either or extra digits, so our quotient passes the test. Or note that the 1 has to be carried when you get to 100 so the 99 becomes 00 and the 1 gets carried again to 98 which becomes 99.
Final answer
B