1992 AIME Problems/Problem 15

Problem

Define a positive integer $n^{}_{}$ to be a factorial tail if there is some positive integer $m^{}_{}$ such that the decimal representation of $m!$ ends with exactly $n$ zeroes. How many positive integers less than $1992$ are not factorial tails?

Solution

The number of zeros at the end of $m!$ is $f(m) = \left\lfloor \frac{m}{5} \right\rfloor + \left\lfloor \frac{m}{25} \right\rfloor + \left\lfloor \frac{m}{125} \right\rfloor + \left\lfloor \frac{m}{625} \right\rfloor + \left\lfloor \frac{m}{3125} \right\rfloor + \cdots$ .

Note that if $m$ is a multiple of $5$ , $f(m) = f(m+1) = f(m+2) = f(m+3) = f(m+4)$ .

Since $f(m) \le \frac{m}{5} + \frac{m}{25} + \frac{m}{125} + \cdots = \frac{m}{4}$ , a value of $m$ such that $f(m) = 1991$ is greater than $7964$ . Testing values greater than this yields $f(7975)=1991$ .

There are $\frac{7975}{5} = 1595$ distinct positive integers, $f(m)$ , less than $1992$ . Thus, there are $1991-1595 = \boxed{396}$ positive integers less than $1992$ that are not factorial tails.

1992 AIME (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
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1992 AIME Problems/Problem 15

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