2020 AMC 10B Problems/Problem 12

Problem

The decimal representation of $\dfrac{1}{20^{20}}$ consists of a string of zeros after the decimal point, followed by a $9$ and then several more digits. How many zeros are in that initial string of zeros after the decimal point?

$\textbf{(A)} \text{ 23} \qquad \textbf{(B)} \text{ 24} \qquad \textbf{(C)} \text{ 25} \qquad \textbf{(D)} \text{ 26} \qquad \textbf{(E)} \text{ 27}$

Solution

$\dfrac{1}{20^{20}}=\dfrac{1}{(10\cdot2)^{20}}=\dfrac{1}{10^{20}\cdot2^{20}}$

Now we do some estimation. Notice that $2^{20}=1024^2$ , which means that $2^{20}$ is a little more than $1000^2=1,000,000$ . Multiplying it with $10^{20}$ , we get that the denominator is about $1\underbrace{00\dots0}_{26 \text{ zeros}}$ . Notice that when we divide $1$ by an $n$ digit number, there are $n-1$ zeros before the first nonzero digit. This means that when we divide $1$ by the $27$ digit integer $1\underbrace{00\dots0}_{26 \text{ zeros}}$ , there are $\boxed{\textbf{(D) } \text{26}}$ zeros in the initial string after the decimal point. -PCChess

2020 AMC 10B (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
Preceded by Problem 11	Followed by Problem 13
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2020 AMC 10B Problems/Problem 12

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