• For what integers N is ( N^3 + 100) divisible by (N+10) ?

    From henhanna@gmail.com@21:1/5 to All on Sat Jul 2 08:15:40 2022
    For what integers N is ( N^3 + 100) divisible by (N+10) ?


    ---------- pls wait a few days before posting answers or hints.

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    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Edward Murphy@21:1/5 to henh...@gmail.com on Sun Jul 3 13:52:54 2022
    On 7/2/2022 8:15 AM, henh...@gmail.com wrote:
    For what integers N is ( N^3 + 100) divisible by (N+10) ?


    ---------- pls wait a few days before posting answers or hints.

    Note that his "please wait a few days" business is going against
    *literally decades* of ingrained rec.puzzles culture, which instead
    favors "please use spoiler space and/or rot13"; the assumptions being
    that (a) people who just don't want to accidentally see the solution
    still have some protection, and (b) few if any people will bother to
    read someone else's answer and then try to pass it off as their own.

    Here's some spoiler space before my derivation of the answer.






























    Note that
    N^3 + 100 = (N + 10) * (N^2 - 10N + 100) - 900
    and let C = N^2 - 10N + 100

    If N^3 + 100 is divisible by N + 10, then
    N^3 + 100 = (N + 10) * K for some integer K

    Now we can do the following:
    (N + 10) * C - 900 = (N + 10) * K
    (N + 10) * C = (N + 10) * K + 900
    (N + 10) * (C - K) = 900
    and note that C - K is an integer, so 900 is divisible by N + 10.

    900's prime factorization is 2^2 * 3^2 * 5^2, so its factors are
    1, 2, 4, 3, 6, 12, 9, 18, 36,
    5, 10, 20, 15, 30, 60, 45, 90, 180,
    25, 50, 100, 75, 150, 300, 225, 450, 900
    and their additive inverses. Any value of N that is 10 less than
    one of those factors should work, so that's 54 distinct solutions.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)