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jmc

algebra senior

Problem

For each integer , let be the area of the region in the coordinate plane defined by the inequalities and , where is the greatest integer not exceeding . Find the number of values of with for which is an integer.
Solution
Let be a positive integer. Then for Thus, on this interval, the graph of is a trapezoid, with left height right height and base so its area is Let be a positive integer such that Then for the graph of is a trapezoid with left height right height and base so its area is We want to compute the area of the graph for ; in particular, we want this area to be an integer. We know that the area for is Since is always an integer, for our purposes, we keep only the term. This gives us Thus, we want to be divisible by 4. We compute modulo 4 for and and obtain the following results:

Case 1: for some integer

All integers in the range work, for a total of integers.

Case 2: for some integer

Only odd integers in the range work. These are for a total of integers.

Case 3: for some integer

No integers in the range work.

Case 4: for some integer

Only even integers in the range work. These are for a total of integers.

Thus, the four cases and contribute integers.

Summing over covers the cases and gives us integers.

For which covers the cases we have another 29 integers.

For which covers the cases there are no integers.

For only the even integers in the range work. We want the integers up to 1000, which are and there are 20 of them.

Thus, the total number of integers we seek is
Final answer
483