An interesting problem....

Does there exist a power of 2, such that its digits (in decimal representation) can be permuted to form a different power of 2?

8 Answers

341
Hari Shankar ·

Muh thinking suh:

Let the two powers be 2a and 2b with a>b. Then 9|2a-2b = 2b(2a-b-1).

This means 9|(2a-b-1)

Remember that 2a and 2b got to have the same number of digits (as the last digit of 2a cannot be zero)

Since log 2 = 0.3010, a-b is at most 3 and so 9 cannot divide 2a-b-1

Hence this fantasy though enticing cannot be made concrete

341
Hari Shankar ·

Awaiting some comment on this.

62
Lokesh Verma ·

awesome thought process.. to an awesome question [1]

11
Devil ·

Phenominal soln, sir, and surely that's not a surprise from u.

Actually one of my college seniors asked me this qsn, and I gave a diffrent soln, I'm not absolutely sure whether it's correct or not......

Since 2a and 2b (lets call them like that), have the same digits in different orders, we have 2a≡2b(mod 9)......

Now let a=6k+c, and b=6l+d.... for the congruence condition to be satisfied, it's obvious c=d is the only soln.....with 0≤c,d≤5.

Further we use the fact that 2a & 2b have the same number of digits, which gives (a-b)≤4......which in turn gives 6(k-l)≤4, which contradicts the fact that such powers exist.....

341
Hari Shankar ·

Its the essentially the same solution. I rewrote the congruence relation as 2a-b≡1 and first itself noted the condition on a-b (not very accurately though!).

341
Hari Shankar ·

BTW howz ISI?

11
Devil ·

Oh sir,It's gr8.....! [1]

21
Shubhodip ·

soln:

let A be a power of two

numbers that are power of two and permutation of A can be 2A , 4A , 8A

but A , 3A and 7A are not divisible by 9

so No such number exists ;)

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