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Divisibility claims

BrainteasersHard

contestants are numbered to . Each is honest (a truth-teller) or deceptive (a liar). Contestant says: "The number of honest contestants among the of us is a multiple of ." ( counts as a multiple of every number.) In how many different ways can the types be assigned so that all statements are consistent?

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A whole number, a decimal, a fraction like 3/8 or a percent.

Hint

Let be the number of truth-tellers. The statements depend only on , so find which can be consistent with the set of people who are truthful.

Solution
  1. Let be the number of truth-tellers. Person is truthful exactly when divides , so the truth-tellers are the people whose numbers divide , and there must be exactly of them.
  2. If every number divides , giving truth-tellers, which is a contradiction.
  3. For the divisors of other than itself are at most , so there are at most truth-tellers, which is a contradiction.
  4. For the only divisor is , and for the divisors are and , and both are consistent; each fixes the assignment, so the count is .

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