Thursday, June 23, 2011

Ones and nines

Show that all the divisors of any number of the form 19...9 (with an odd number of nines) end in 1 or 9.  For example, the numbers 19, 1999, 199999, and 19999999 are prime (so clearly the property holds), and the (positive) divisors of 1999999999 are 1, 31, 64516129 and 1999999999 itself.
Show further that this property continues to hold if we insert an equal number of zeroes before the nines.  For example, the numbers 109, 1000999, 10000099999, 100000009999999, and 1000000000999999999 are prime, and the (positive)divisors of 10000000000099999999999 are 1, 19, 62655709, 1190458471, 8400125030569, 159602375580811, 526315789478947368421, and 10000000000099999999999 itself.

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