FACTORIALS:

FACTORIALS AND ITS APPLICATIONS:

Today, we are going to learn about the factorials and their various applications. But, before we start, we should know the values of factorials up till 6 which will be useful in our calculations. n! = n (n 1)! 0! = 1 1! = 1 1 2 = 2 1! = 2 3! = 1 2 3 = 3 2! = 6 4! = 1 2 3 4 = 4 3! = 24 5! = 1 2 3 4 5 = 5 4! = 120 6! = 1 2 3 4 5 6 = 6 5! = 720 If we know the values up till 6!, those values can be used orally in many scenarios. Moreover, we can also find out values of higher factorial in terms of previous factorial. For example value of 7! = 7 720. Let us see an application based on the same logic. E.g. 1: Find the remainder when (1! + 2! + 3! + 4! + 5! + ..+ 100!) is divided by 6. This problem can be solved very easily if we know the values of factorials. We just need to find which smallest factorials value is 6 or is a multiple of 6. Because any multiple of 6 divided by 6 leaves a remainder of zero. We know that value of 3! is 6. If 3! = 6, it is guaranteed that all the factorials ahead of it will be a multiple of 6 as n! = n (n 1)! .

So, all the factorials starting from 3! onwards when divided by 6 will leave a remainder of zero. So. Our answer is dependent on the first two terms. So, when (1! + 2!) 6, the remainder is 3. E.g. 2: What is the remainder when (1!)2 + (2!)2 + (3!)2 + (4!)2 + (5!)2 + (6!)2 + + (50!)2 is divided by 18? Again, we have to find which smallest (factorial)2 value is 18 or is a multiple of 18. We know that 3! is 6 and (3!)2 will be equal to 36 which is a multiple of 18, so the values of all the (factorials)2 after (3!)2 will also be a multiple of 18. So, answer is dependent on the first two terms since all the terms ahead of 2nd term will be a multiple of 18 and leave a remainder of zero. Answer is (1!)2 + (2!)2 18 = (1 + 4) 18 = 5 Similarly, any problem based on the remainder with the factorials can be solve without much trouble. Lets concentrate on the important deduction of this chapter.

Highest power of a Prime number in any given factorial:

If we want to factorize 18, what will we do? Answer should be we will break or resolve the number 18 into its prime factors. So, 18 = 2 32. Similarly, 24 = 23 31. So, if we have to factorize 6!, the idea will again be to resolve or break 6! into its prime factors. So, practically we will have to find the highest powers of all the prime numbers which come in 6!. So, 6! can be written as 2a 3b 5c. (We will get only three prime factors in the expansion of 6!). Now, we have to learn to find the values of a, b and c. E.g. 3: Find the highest power of 2 in 8!. We have to find how many 2s are there in the expansion of 8!. 8! = 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8.

We know that at least one 2 is present in all multiples of 2. So, first of all we will count multiples of 2 in 8!. Multiples of 2 in 8! = 8 2 = 4 (Multiples of 2 present in all the alternate numbers.) After this, we should ask question to ourselves, have we counted all the 2s present in 8!. Answer should be no, as all the multiples of 4 have one extra 2. So, our next step will be to find how many multiples of 4 in 8!. Multiples of 4 in 8! = 8 4 = 2 (Multiples of 4 present in all the fourth term starting from 1) Again, the same question, have we counted all 2s? Answer once again is no, as all the multiples of 8 have two extra 2s. But one of those extra 2 was already counted in multiples of 4, but still one of the extra 2 is remaining. That will have to be counted separately. Multiples of 8 in 8! = 8 8 = 1. Have we counted all 2s? Answer should be yes. Now we have counted all the twos. Again, think here, why not we went ahead and found out the multiples of 16. Because the multiples of 16 are present in 16 1, 16 2, 16 3, and so on. 8! does not have a multiple of 16 or 32 or so on. So, the answer for the highest power of 2 in 8! Will be (multiples of 2 + multiples of 4 + multiples of 8 ) = 4 + 2 + 1 = 27. E.g. 4: Find the highest power of 2 in 50!. Again we will adopt the same procedure. Multiples of 2 = 50 2 = 25 Multiples of 4 = 50 4 = 12 Multiples of 8 = 50 8 = 6 Multiples of 16 = 50 16 = 3 Multiples of 32 = 50 32 = 1 We would not find out multiples of 64 as no multiples of 64 are present in 50!.

So, our answer will be 25 + 12 + 6 + 3 + 1 = 47. Ans: 247. Alternative Method: Rather than finding out the multiples of 2, 4 , 8, or 16, we can just divide the quotient obtained in the previous stage by 2, we will get the answer.

Again, we got the same thing. So, rather than dividing by 50 by 8, we can just divide the quotient obtained in the previous stage by 2, we will get the same result. So, what we can do is keep dividing 50 by 2 and keep adding the quotient until it cannot be divided by 2. So, highest power of 2 in 50! Can be calculated orally like 25 + 12 + 6 + 3 + 1 = 47. (We stopped at 1 because 1 cannot be divided by 2 anymore). This funda can be used in finding out the highest power of any prime number in a given factorial. Advantage of using this approach is that it is easy to divide a number by 2 as compared to dividing by 4, 8, 16, 32 or higher powers of 2.

E.g. 5: Find the highest power of 2 in 139!.

But if we just follow the alternative method, we will get the same answer faster because it is easy to divide 139 by 2 as compared to dividing by 4, 8, 16, 32 or so on. We can get the answer by just dividing the quotients obtained in the previous stage and adding them up. 69 + 34 + 17 + 8 + 4 + 2 + 1 = 2135. This is a much faster method and we will use this throughout the chapter. E.g. 6: Find the highest power of 3 in 10!. We have to find how many 3s are there in 10!. We will follow the same logic. First of all, we will find multiples of 3 in 10! = 10 3 = 3 Multiples of 9 in 10! = 10 9 = 1 We would not find out multiples of 27 since it will not be present in 10!. This is the standard way of finding out the highest power of 3 in a given factorial. But, we have also learnt the faster way of finding out the highest power of a prime number in a factorial. By using that, we will just keep dividing the quotient by 3 until the quotient cannot be divided by 3 anymore. So, 10 divided by 3 gives us a quotient of 3 and again 3 divided by 3 gives a quotient of 1, now 1 cannot be further divided by 3, so answer will be just addition of 3 + 1 = 34. E.g. 7: Find the highest power of 3 in 150!. Using the smarter approach we can write the answer in one step: 50 + 16 + 5 + 1 = 372. E.g. 8: Find the highest power of 7 in 100!. Again using the smarter approach, we can just keep dividing the quotient by 7 obtained in the previous stage. So, answer would be 14 + 2 = 716.

So, like this we can find out highest power of a prime number in a given factorial. Now, we will move on to finding out the highest power of a composite number in a given factorial. There is slight change in the approach but logic remains the same.

Highest Power of a Composite number in a given factorial:

E.g. 9: Find the highest power of 4 in 10!. Those of whom dont know composite number, here is the definition. All the numbers having more than 2 distinct factors are called COMPOSITE NUMBERS. For e.g. 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, and so on are composite numbers. Coming back to the main question, we have to find the highest power of 4. If we apply the same logic of finding the highest power of prime number in a given factorial, then we will just find out the multiples of 4 in 10!. So, multiples of 4 in 10! = 10 4 = 2. So, answer should be 42. But, just think is the answer correct. Its wrong. We should be able to identify that 4 is just not present in multiples of 4, but 4 can also be obtained when two multiples of 2 are multiplied together. 10! = If we just take multiples of 4 then we are just taking 4 and 8, but we are missing out on the other multiples of 2 which are not multiples of 4. For example, we are not considering 2, 6, 10. Since the numbers are in multiplication 2 6 will give us one more 4. Similarly 8 has three 2s, we have considered just two of them if we are looking for multiples of 4, so we have one spare 2 and that combined with 2 of 10 will result into one more four. Originally we got two 4s and we got two more through multiples of 2. So, in total we got four 4s. Answer is 44. We got the answer, but what should be the logic? The logic should be if we can find the number of 2s in 10!, we can find out the number of 4s in 10!. So, we will directly find the highest power of 2 and divide the power of 2 by 2 to get the highest power of 4. Highest power of 2 in 10! = 5 + 2 + 1 = 28.

Now, 28 = 4?. We can easily find out that answer should be 44. So, to find highest power of any composite number in a given factorial, we need to break that composite number into its prime factors and we know how to find highest power of a prime number in a factorial. After finding out the highest power of the primes, the lesser power of any one of the primes will be considered as the highest power of that composite number. Let us see one example, logic will become clear. E.g. 10: Find the highest power of 6 in 20!. If we want to find the highest power of 6 in 20!, we will need to break 6 into its prime factors. So, 6 = 21 31. That means we need to find the highest power of 2 and that of 3 in 20!. Highest power of 2 in 20! = 10 + 5 + 2 + 1 = 218. Highest power of 3 in 20! = 6 + 2 = 38. So, we can write in 20!, highest power of 2 and 3s are = 218 38. How many 6s can be formed with 218 38, answer should be pretty simple. Lesser power of a prime will be considered, since 6 is obtained by product of one 2 and one 3 and if we have eight 3s and eighteen 2s, we can form eight 6s. So, answer for highest power of 6 in 20! is 68. If we observe and analyze, we can further reduce our work in this case. In any factorial, highest power of 2 will always be more than highest power of 3 since the frequency of occurrence of 2 is more than that of 3(2s appear every alternate digits but 3s appear after every second term in a factorial). And we know that answer is dependent on the lesser power, we can save our time by just finding out the highest power of 3 which will be the same for highest power for 6. E.g. 11: Find the highest power of 8 in 40!. To find the highest power of 8 in 40!, we will need to factorize 8 into its prime factor which is 23, so, we will find the highest power of 2 in 40!. Highest power of 2 in 40! = 20 + 10 + 5 + 2 + 1 = 238. 238 = 8? = 812. (We will divide the power of 2 by 3, since three 2s constitute one 8.) Similarly, we can find highest power of any composite number in any factorial.

Let us do one more example of different type but based on the same logic. E.g. 12: Find the highest power of 4! In 50!. The logic is still the same. Earlier for any composite number we used to factorize the number into its prime factors, then after finding out the highest power of all the primes in that given factorial, the lesser power of one of the primes would give us the required answer. Here also we need to break 4! into its prime factors first. 4! = 23 31. So, we need to find out the highest power of 8 and 3, then look for the lesser power of the two numbers. We can find out the highest power of 3 orally. Highest power of 3 in 50! = 16 + 5 + 1 = 322. To find the highest power of 8, we need to find the highest power of 2 first. Highest power of 2 in 50! = 25 + 12 + 6 + 3 + 1 = 247. So, highest power of 8 in 50! = 247 = 815. Coming back to the original question, we have to find the highest power of 4! in 50! which boils down to 815 322. Thus, answer should be 4!15. E.g. 13: Find the highest power of 30 in 100!. We should quickly factorize 30 which is 21 31 51. That means we have to find out the highest power of 2, 3 and 5. But, think smartly. Highest power of 30 will depend on the lesser power of 2, 3 or 5 and we know that in any factorial, number of 5s will be always lesser than number on 2s and 3s. So, our answer will be dependent on highest power of 5 which can be done orally. Highest power of 5 in 100! = 20 + 4 = 524. So, highest power of 30 in 100! will be 3024.

Exercise:
1. Find the highest power of 16 in 80!. 2. Find the highest power of 7! in 80!. 3. Find the highest power of 24 in 150!.

4. By which least natural number should 120! be divided so that the quotient is an odd number? 5. By which least natural number should 200! be multiplied so that the resultant number is perfectly divisible by 1125?

Answer Key: 1. 1619 2. (7!)12 3. 2448 4. 2116 5. 116 6. 40 4 10. 440 11. 518 7. 8 8. 13! 9.