Browse · MATH
Printjmc
number theory senior
Problem
How many of the 343 smallest positive integers written in base 7 use 4 or 5 (or both) as a digit?
Solution
, so the first 343 natural numbers in base 7 are . Any number in this list that neither includes 4 or 5 only includes the digits 0, 1, 2, 3, and 6. If we replace 6 with 4, these have the same decimal expansions as the integers in base 5. Since there are positive integers less than or equal to , there are 125 integers less than or equal to that contain no 4's or 5's in base 7, which means there are integers that include a 4 or a 5.
Final answer
218