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Name: claudio oton
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Question:
I'd like to know a way to solve this apparently easy problem. If two numbers of two digits are divided and the result is 0.4482759... which are these numbers? I know they could be 13 & 29 or 26 & 58, etc, but I need a way to solve this kind of problem. Thanks. :-)


Replies:
Two digit numbers can be written in this form: 10*a+b, where a and b are integers in [0;9]. Your problem then can be written as: (10*a+b)/(10*x+y)=r - a, b, x, and y are digits and r is r real. This is a problem in the area of algebra called 'ring theory'. I'm not sure this problem has been solved in general. But in the practical case it's not so bad: the two numbers on the left side are integers, so r must be rational, and you'll have at most 10000 combinations to choose from. Do it on a computer :-)

jan p anderson


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