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2006 AIME II Problems/Problem 11

Revision as of 08:27, 29 September 2023 by Andy666 (talk | contribs) (→‎Solution 2 (bash))

Problem

A sequence is defined as follows $a_1=a_2=a_3=1,$ and, for all positive integers $n, a_{n+3}=a_{n+2}+a_{n+1}+a_n.$ Given that $a_{28}=6090307, a_{29}=11201821,$ and $a_{30}=20603361,$ find the remainder when $\sum^{28}_{k=1} a_k$ is divided by 1000.

Solutions

Solution 1

Define the sum as $s$. Since $a_n\ = a_{n + 3} - a_{n + 2} - a_{n + 1}$, the sum will be:

$s = a_{28} + \sum^{27}_{k=1} (a_{k+3}-a_{k+2}-a_{k+1}) \\ s = a_{28} + \left(\sum^{30}_{k=4} a_{k} - \sum^{29}_{k=3} a_{k}\right) - \left(\sum^{28}_{k=2} a_{k}\right)\\ s = a_{28} + (a_{30} - a_{3}) - \left(\sum^{28}_{k=2} a_{k}\right) = a_{28} + a_{30} - a_{3} - (s - a_{1})\\ s = -s + a_{28} + a_{30}$

Thus $s = \frac{a_{28} + a_{30}}{2}$, and $a_{28},\,a_{30}$ are both given; the last four digits of their sum is $3668$, and half of that is $1834$. Therefore, the answer is $\boxed{834}$.

Solution 3 (some guessing involved)/"Engineer's Induction"

All terms in the sequence are sums of previous terms, so the sum of all terms up to a certain point must be some linear combination of the first three terms. Also, we are given $a_{28}, a_{29},$ and $a_{30}$, so we can guess that there is some way to use them in a formula. Namely, we guess that there exists some $p, q, r$ such that $\sum_{k=1}^{n}{a_k} = pa_n+qa_{n+1}+ra_{n+2}$. From here, we list out the first few terms of the sequence and the cumulative sums, and with a little bit of substitution and algebra we see that $(p, q, r) = (\frac{1}{2}, 0, \frac{1}{2})$, at least for the first few terms. From this, we have that $\sum_{k=1}^{28}{a_k} = \frac{a_{28}+a_{30}}{2} \equiv{\boxed{834}}(\mod 1000)$.

Solution by zeroman; clarified by srisainandan6

See also

2006 AIME II (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
All AIME Problems and Solutions

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