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Difference between revisions of "1981 AHSME Problems/Problem 13"

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Latest revision as of 14:01, 28 June 2025

Problem

Suppose that at the end of any year, a unit of money has lost $10\%$ of the value it had at the beginning of that year. Find the smallest integer $n$ such that after $n$ years, the money will have lost at least $90\%$ of its value (To the nearest thousandth $\log_{10}{3}=0.477$).

$\textbf{(A)}\ 14\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 16\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 18\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 20\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 22$

Solution

What we are trying to solve is $\log_{0.9}{0.1}=n$. This turns into $\frac{\log{0.1}}{\log{0.9}}=\frac{-1}{\log{9}-1}=n$ We know that $\log_{10}{3}=0.477$, thus by log rules we have $2\log_{10}{3}=\log_{10}{9}=2*0.477=0.954$, thus $n=\frac{1}{.046} \approx 21.7$, and our answer is $\boxed{(\text{E}) 22}$.

-edited by Maxxie and maxamc

See also

1981 AHSME (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
Preceded by
Problem 12 		Followed by
Problem 14
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16 • 17 • 18 • 19 • 20 • 21 • 22 • 23 • 24 • 25 • 26 • 27 • 28 • 29 • 30
All AHSME Problems and Solutions

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