Omar made a list of all the arithmetic progressions of positive integer numbers such that the difference is equal to 2 and the sum of its terms is 200. How many progressions does Omar's list have?
Problem
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Tags: Arithmetic Progression, algebra
16.09.2021 23:15
17.09.2021 03:24
We claim the answer is 6. Suppose the first term of the AP is a and that the progression has k terms. Note that a,k∈Z+. Then, the sum of the terms of the AP is a+(a+2)+…+(a+2k−2)=ak+2(1+…+k−1)=ak+(k−1)k=k(a+k−1).Thus, we must have k(a+k−1)=200. Now, since a≥1, we have a+k−1≥k, so k must be the smallest factor. Now, note that 200=23⋅52 has 12 positive divisors, giving 6 possible values for k. Each value of k corresponds to a single value of a, so each of these 6 values gives one of the progressions in Omar's list. Since no other progression can be on the list by the work above, the answer is 6. ◼ Extra: The 6 progressions are 20099,10147,49,51,5336,38,40,42,4418,20,22,24,26,28,30,3211,13,15,17,19,21,23,25,27,29