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Suppose you consider the set of all perfect squares (the squares of all of the integers).What percent of them have an odd digit for their hundreds place?
The discussion centers on the percentage of perfect squares that have an odd digit in their hundreds and tens places. It concludes that 41% of perfect squares have an odd digit in the hundreds place, while 20% have an odd digit in the tens place. The calculations are based on the squares of digits from 0 to 9, with specific examples provided. The methodology involves analyzing the distribution of digits in the first 100 perfect squares.
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checkittwice said:suppose you consider the set of all perfect squares (the squares of all of the integers).What percent of them have an odd digit for their hundreds place?
CaptainBlack said:41%
cb
checkittwice said:I would chop off that 1% and make it 40%.
However, I don't have the work for you at this
time to back it up.
If you square the number $a+10b+100c+\ldots$ (where $a,\,b,\,c\ldots$ are digits from 0 to 9) then you getcheckittwice said:I really meant to ask (hopefully an easier question with less work):"What percent of the perfect squares have an odd digit in their tens place?"
Opalg said:If you square the number $a+10b+100c+\ldots$ (where $a,\,b,\,c\ldots$ are digits from 0 to 9) then you get
$a^2 + 20ab + \ldots$ (everything else is a multiple of 100).
If you are only interested in whether the tens digit is even or odd, then a multiple of 20 makes no difference. So everything depends on whether the tens digit in $a^2$ is even or odd. The squares of the digits from 0 to 9 are
00, 01, 04, 09, 25, 49, 64, 81 (tens digit even)
and
16, 36 (tens digit odd).
Each of these is equally likely to occur, so I reckon that the proportion of perfect squares with an odd digit in their tens place is 20%.
... and I agree with your 41% for those with an odd digit in the hundreds place. I simply counted the number of odd hundreds-place digits in the list of the first 100 squares (as listed http://www.maths.com/numbers.square.htm, for example). The proportion in any other sequence of 100 consecutive squares will be the same.CaptainBlack said:That is what I get.