10/2/2015

Home

(1)AlgebraProblem:AustralianMathematicsCompetition2015Q30SharkyKesa|Brilliant

AustralianMathematicsCompetition2015Q30

Algebra Level4 105points

Stats
Profile

Interact
Community

In a stack of logs, each row has exactly one fewer log than the row
below. With 9 logs, the tallest possible stack is 4 logs at the
bottom, 3 logs in the second row and 2 logs on the top row,
making a total of 3 rows. With 2015 logs, how many rows are
there in the tallest possible stack?

Correct!
Youanswered62.

Publish
About

Hide3solutions
Nextproblem

Topics
Algebra
Shareit.

Geometry

28%ofpeoplegotitright

NumberTheory
Calculus

bySharkyKesa,14,Australia
144Solvers

Save

Share

More

Combinatorics
BasicMathematics
Logic

Search

3Solutions

Voteupsolutionsyouadmire

ClassicalMechanics
ElectricityandMagnetism
ComputerScience

KrutarthPatel

QuantitativeFinance
SATMath

Writeasolution.

JEEMath

Solutionwritingguide:Level4
Formattingguide

Insertanimage

Preview

ChewSeongCheong
1week,5daysago

14

We note that the number of logs of a "perfect" stack, that is the top row with
... until

log; second, ; third ,

logs at the bottom is a triangular number which is given by

. Therefore, for

To find the number of rows for

. Therefore, we have:

Since

logs, the tallest stack is

, we need to find the smallest

, the number of rows of the tallest stack for

. For example:

rows.
greater than

and check

logs is

.
Subscribetocomments

Reply

KushagraSahni
1week,4daysago

Same Way Sir, Nice solution.

Reply

AsdfghRfcv
1week,4daysago

https://brilliant.org/problems/australianmathematicscompetitionq30/?group=zmCFaDQeLvbe#!/solutioncomments/113503/

1/4

10/2/2015

(1)AlgebraProblem:AustralianMathematicsCompetition2015Q30SharkyKesa|Brilliant

hold on explain how tallest stack has n-1 rows.a doubt from a student.

Reply

ChewSeongCheong
1week,4daysago

In response to Asdfgh Rfcv: Let the number of logs be . The following shows
how
logs are stacked. Note not all number of rows is
. When
, such as
, the number of rows is . When
, such as
then the number of rows is
. Observe that
is
an odd one out.

Lastmodified1week,2daysago

Reply

SharkyKesa
1week,3daysago

In response to Chew-Seong Cheong: Technically, stacking 8 logs is impossible

because it violates that each row must have 1 less log than the one below it.

Reply

OttoBretscher
1week,2daysago

In response to Sharky Kesa: Sure stacking 8 logs is possible... one row of eight
logs ;)

Reply

AsdfghRfcv
1week,4daysago

In response to Chew-Seong Cheong: sorry for this

Reply

SharkyKesa
1week,5daysago

Nice solution.

Reply

SharkyKesa
1week,5daysago

This stack of logs can be defined as the expression

where
represents the th triangular
number, is the number of logs on the bottom row (with
being the number of logs if the stack
was 'perfect', that is have one log at the to, two logs in the next row, and so forth) and being one
less than the number of logs on top of the stack (so as to remove a portion of
from the top to
reduce it to the stack required. To answer the question, we must maximise the value of
.
We have

https://brilliant.org/problems/australianmathematicscompetitionq30/?group=zmCFaDQeLvbe#!/solutioncomments/113503/

2/4

10/2/2015

(1)AlgebraProblem:AustralianMathematicsCompetition2015Q30SharkyKesa|Brilliant

Since and
give 4030.

Since

are positive integers, we have to determine pairs of positive integers that multiply to

and are positive integers, we have

. In order to maximise the value of
, we must minimise
. We will start with the combination
.

Since and both satisfy being positive integers, this combination works. Therefore, the
maximum value of
is
. There are 62 rows of logs in the stack.
ChallengeMasternote:
Goodobservationofpullingoutjust

Subscribetocomments

Reply

LowPeiZuo
1week,4daysago

There is a statement written wrong accidentaly, m+n+1 should be greater than m-n.

Reply

KushagraSahni
1week,4daysago

In response to Low Pei Zuo: You are right

Reply

OttoBretscher
1week,2daysago

We can obtain possible stacking arrangements from factorizations of 2015. Specifically, if

then we have
where
and
, provided that
example, with
, we obtain
, so that we have
can't do any better than that since 2015 is not itself a triangular number.

Reply

https://brilliant.org/problems/australianmathematicscompetitionq30/?group=zmCFaDQeLvbe#!/solutioncomments/113503/

. For
rows, and we

Subscribetocomments

3/4

10/2/2015

(1)AlgebraProblem:AustralianMathematicsCompetition2015Q30SharkyKesa|Brilliant

Tryrelatedproblems
There'ssomethingspecialaboutRamanuja

Logismyfirstlove

Algebra Level3

Algebra Level3

Integerpolynomial

BouncingBall

Algebra Level4

Algebra Level3

Terms Privacy Brilliant2015

Practicemath

Practicemath

https://brilliant.org/problems/australianmathematicscompetitionq30/?group=zmCFaDQeLvbe#!/solutioncomments/113503/

4/4