Let $x=2^6 3^4 5^2$, then how many distinct values of $|A-B|$ are possible where $A, B$ are the factors of $x$?
How to approach this problem?
|
Let $x=2^6 3^4 5^2$, then how many distinct values of $|A-B|$ are possible where $A, B$ are the factors of $x$? How to approach this problem? |
|||||||||
|
|
There are $7\times5\times3=105$ divisors of $x$. There are at most $\binom{105}{2}+1=5461$ non-negative differences among the elements. $\binom{105}{2}$ computes the number of pairs of distinct factors and $1$ is for $0$, the difference between a factor and itself. There may be fewer than this many because some differences may be repeated. To compute the actual number of differences, one could use a program like Mathematica. I used this code
to compute that there are $2856$ distinct non-negative differences. |
||||
|
|