2021 AIME I Problems/Problem 3

Problem

Find the number of positive integers less than $1000$ that can be expressed as the difference of two integral powers of $2.$

Solution 1

We want to find the number of positive integers $n<1000$ which can be written in the form $n = 2^a - 2^b$ for some non-negative integers $a > b \ge 0$ (note that if $a=b$ , then $2^a-2^b = 0$ ). We first observe $a$ must be at most 10; if $a \ge 11$ , then $2^a - 2^b \ge 2^{10} > 1000$ . As $2^{10} = 1024 \approx 1000$ , we can first choose two different numbers $a > b$ from the set $\{0,1,2,\ldots,10\}$ in $\binom{10}{2}=55$ ways. This includes $(a,b) = (10,0)$ , $(10,1)$ , $(10,2)$ , $(10,3)$ , $(10,4)$ which are invalid as $2^a - 2^b > 1000$ in this case. For all other choices $a$ and $b$ , the value of $2^a - 2^b$ is less than 1000.

We claim that for all other choices of $a$ and $b$ , the values of $2^a - 2^b$ are pairwise distinct. More specifically, if $(a_1,b_1) \neq (a_2,b_2)$ where $10 \ge a_1 > b_1 \ge 0$ and $10 \ge a_2 > b_2 \ge 0$ , we must show that $2^{a_1}-2^{b_1} \neq 2^{a_2} - 2^{b_2}$ . Suppose otherwise for sake of contradiction; rearranging yields $2^{a_1}+2^{b_2} = 2^{a_2}+2^{b_1}$ . We use the fact that every positive integer has a unique binary representation:

If $a_1 \neq b_2$ then $\{a_1,b_2\} = \{a_2,b_1\}$ ; from here we can deduce either $a_1=a_2$ and $b_1=b_2$ (contradicting the assumption that $(a_1,b_1) \neq (a_2,b_2)$ , or $a_1=b_1$ and $a_2=b_2$ (contradicting the assumption $a_1>b_1$ and $a_2>b_2$ ).

If $a_1 = b_2$ then $2^{a_1}+2^{b_2} = 2 \times 2^{a_1}$ , and it follows that $a_1=a_2=b_1=b_2$ , also contradicting the assumption $(a_1,b_1) \neq (a_2,b_2)$ . Hence we obtain contradiction.

Then there are $\binom{10}{2}-5$ choices for $(a,b)$ for which $2^a - 2^b$ is a positive integer less than 1000; by the above claim, each choice of $(a,b)$ results in a different positive integer $n$ . Then there are $55-5 = \boxed{050}$ integers which can be expressed as a difference of two powers of 2.

Solution 2 (Casework)

Case 1: When our answer is in the form $2^n-2^i$ , where $i$ is an integer such that $0\le i\le 4$ .

We start with the subcase where it is $2^n-2^0$ , for some integer $n$ where $n>0$ (this is because the case where $n=0$ yields $2^0-2^0=0$ , which doesn't work because it must be a positive integer.) Note that $2^{10}=1024$ , and $2^9=512$ . Our answer needs to be less than $1000$ , so the maximum possible result (in this case) is $2^9-2^0$ . Our lowest result is $2^1-2^0$ . All the positive powers of two less than $1024$ work, so we have $9$ possibilities for this subcase. For subcases $i=1, i=2, i=3,$ and $i=4$ , we have $8, 7, 6,$ and $5$ possibilities, respectively.

Case 2: When our answer is in the form of $2^n-2^j$ , where $j$ is an integer such that $5\le j\le 9$ .

We can start with the subcase where $j=5$ . We notice that $2^5=32$ , and $2^{10}-2^5=992$ which is less than $1000$ , so the greatest result in this subcase is actually $2^{10}-2^5$ , and the lowest is $2^6-2^5$ . Thus, we have $5$ possibilities. For the other four subcases, we have $4, 3, 2,$ and $1$ possibilities, respectively.

Answer: We note that these are our only cases, as numbers in the form of $2^n-2^{10}$ and beyond are greater than $1000$ .

Thus, our result is $9+8+7+6+5+5+4+3+2+1=(9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1)+5=\boxed{50}$ . ~jehu26

Solution 3 (Bash)

We look for all positive integers of the form $2^a-2^b<1000,$ where $0\leq b<a.$ Performing casework on $a,$ we can enumerate all possibilities in the table below: $\begin{array}{c|c} \boldsymbol{a} & \boldsymbol{b} \\ \hline & \\ [-2ex] 1 & 0 \\ 2 & 0,1 \\ 3 & 0,1,2 \\ 4 & 0,1,2,3 \\ 5 & 0,1,2,3,4 \\ 6 & 0,1,2,3,4,5 \\ 7 & 0,1,2,3,4,5,6 \\ 8 & 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7 \\ 9 & 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 \\ 10 & \xcancel{0},\xcancel{1},\xcancel{2},\xcancel{3},\xcancel{4},5,6,7,8,9 \end{array}$ As indicated by the X-marks, the ordered pairs $(a,b)=(10,0),(10,1),(10,2),(10,3),(10,4)$ generate $2^a-2^b>1000,$ which are invalid.

Note that each of the remaining ordered pairs generates one unique desired positive integer. We prove as follows:

The positive integers generated for each value of $a$ are clearly different.
For all integers $1\leq k\leq9,$ the largest positive integer generated for $a=k$ is $1$ less than the smallest positive integer generated for $a=k+1.$

Together, we justified our claim in bold. Our answer is $1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+5=\boxed{050}.$

~MRENTHUSIASM

Solution 4

First, you need to notice that it is impossible to have overlapping, making the problem easier.

Case 1 : $2^0$ There are $9$ ways here, from $2^1$ to $2^9$

It is easy to see here that this continues all the way down to one. However, when the case gets to $32$ , there are 5 ways instead of 4 because $2^{10}-2^5$ is smaller than 1000.

Thus, $9+8+7+6+5+5+4+3+2+1 = 50$

So the answer is $\boxed{050}$

Video Solution by Punxsutawney Phil

https://youtube.com/watch?v=H17E9n2nIyY&t=569s

Video Solution

https://youtu.be/M3DsERqhiDk?t=749

2021 AIME I (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
Preceded by Problem 2	Followed by Problem 4
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15
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