Distribution of 0 digits in factorial series: Difference between revisions
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Example: for 1 to 6 we have 1!, 2!, 3!, 4!, 5!, 6!, or (1, 2, 3, 24, 120, 720), so (2 zero digits) / (8 total digits) = 0.25. |
Example: for 1 to 6 we have 1!, 2!, 3!, 4!, 5!, 6!, or (1, 2, 3, 24, 120, 720), so (2 zero digits) / (8 total digits) = 0.25. |
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Example: for 1 to 25 |
Example: for 1 to 25 the aggregate proportion of 0 digits in the aggregated factorial products is 0.26787. |
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Do this task for 1 to N where N is in (100, 1000, and 10000), so, compute the aggregate proportion of 0 digits |
Do this task for 1 to N where N is in (100, 1000, and 10000), so, compute the aggregate proportion of 0 digits |
Revision as of 03:08, 10 June 2021
Large Factorials and the Distribution of '0' in base 10 digits.
- About the task
We can see that some features of factorial numbers (the series of numbers 1!, 2!, 3!, ...) come about because such numbers are the product of a series of counting numbers, and so those products have predictable factors. For example, all factorials above 1! are even numbers, since they have 2 as a factor. Similarly, all factorials from 5! up end in a 0, because they have 5 and 2 as factors, and thus have 10 as a factor. In fact, the factorial integers add another 0 at the end of the factorial for every step of 5 upward: 5! = 120, 10! = 3628800, 15! = 1307674368000, 16! = 20922789888000 and so on.
Because factorial numbers, which quickly become quite large, continue to have another terminal 0 on the right hand side of the number for every 5 increase in the factorial base number, one might think that the proportion of zeros in a base 10 factorial number might be close to 1/5. However, though the factorial products add another terminating 0 every 5, as the numbers become quite large, the number of digits in the factorial product expands exponentially, and the number above the terminating zeros tends toward 10% of each digit from 0 to 1, as the factorial becomes larger. Thus, as the factorials become larger, the proportion of 0 digits in the factorial products shifts slowly from around 1/5 toward 1/10, since the number of terminating zeros in n! increases only in proportion to n, whereas the number of digits of n in base 10 increases exponentially.
- The task
Create a function to calculate the total fraction of zero digits in the aggregate digits of all factorials from 1 to N. The proportion of 0 digits in base 10 should be calculated using the number as printed as a base 10 integer.
Example: for 1 to 6 we have 1!, 2!, 3!, 4!, 5!, 6!, or (1, 2, 3, 24, 120, 720), so (2 zero digits) / (8 total digits) = 0.25.
Example: for 1 to 25 the aggregate proportion of 0 digits in the aggregated factorial products is 0.26787.
Do this task for 1 to N where N is in (100, 1000, and 10000), so, compute the aggregate proportion of 0 digits in the aggregate of all digits for factorials from 1 to 100, 1 to 1000, and 1 to 10000.
- Stretch task
Find the N in 10000 < N < 50000 where the proportion of 0 digits in the aggregated factorial products from 1 to N permanently falls below 0.16.