1987 AIME Problems/Problem 11

Problem

Find the largest possible value of $k$ for which $3^{11}$ is expressible as the sum of $k$ consecutive positive integers.

Solution

Let us write down one such sum, with $m$ terms and first term $n + 1$ :

$3^{11} = (n + 1) + (n + 2) + \ldots + (n + m) = \frac{1}{2} m(2n + m + 1)$ .

Thus $m(2n + m + 1) = 2 \cdot 3^{11}$ so $m$ is a divisor of $2\cdot 3^{11}$ . However, because $n \geq 0$ we have $m^2 < m(m + 1) \leq 2\cdot 3^{11}$ so $m < \sqrt{2\cdot 3^{11}} < 3^6$ . Thus, we are looking for large factors of $2\cdot 3^{11}$ which are less than $3^6$ . The largest such factor is clearly $2\cdot 3^5 = 486$ ; for this value of $m$ we do indeed have the valid expression $3^{11} = 122 + 123 + \ldots + 607$ , for which $k=\boxed{486}$ .

1987 AIME (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
Preceded by Problem 10	Followed by Problem 12
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15
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1987 AIME Problems/Problem 11

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