Problem

Source: 2002 Estonia National Olympiad Final Round grade 11 p3

Tags: number theory, Digits



The teacher writes a $2002$-digit number consisting only of digits $9$ on the blackboard. The first student factors this number as $ab$ with $a > 1$ and $b > 1$ and replaces it on the blackboard by two numbers $a'$ and $b'$ with $|a-a'| = |b-b'| = 2$. The second student chooses one of the numbers on the blackboard, factors it as $cd$ with $c > 1$ and $d > 1$ and replaces the chosen number by two numbers $c'$ and $d'$ with $|c-c'| = |d-d'| = 2$, etc. Is it possible that after a certain number of students have been to the blackboard all numbers written there are equal to $9$?