Problem

Source: ELMO Shortlist 2024/N6

Tags: Elmo, number theory



Given a positive integer whose base-$10$ representation is $\overline{d_k\ldots d_0}$ for some integer $k \geq 0$, where $d_k \neq 0$, a move consists of selecting some integers $0 \leq i \leq j \leq k$, such that the digits $d_j,\ldots,d_i$ are not all $0$, erasing them from $n$, and replacing them with a divisor of $\overline{d_j\ldots d_i}$ (this divisor need not have the same number of digits as $\overline{d_j\ldots d_i}$). Prove that for all sufficiently large even integers $n$, we may apply some sequence of moves to $n$ to transform it into $2024$. Allen Wang