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III OBM

Brazil algebra

Problem

Show that there are at least 3 and at most 4 powers of with digits. For which are there ?
Solution
Take to be the smallest integer such that . Then , so . So , and all have digits. Thus there are at least powers of with digits.

(otherwise ). Hence , so has more than digits. Thus there are at most powers of with digits.

There are if there is an integer between and .
Final answer
There are at least 3 and at most 4 powers of two with m digits. There are 4 precisely for those m such that there exists an integer n with (m−1)/log10 2 ≤ n < m/log10 2 − 3 (equivalently, an integer lies between (m−1)/log10 2 and m/log10 2 − 3).

Techniques

Exponential functionsLogarithmic functions