HMMO 2020 #0kfq
From module Telescoping Sums and Products
Understand the scale
Problem
Problem:
While waiting for their next class on Killian Court, Alesha and Belinda both write the same sequence on a piece of paper, where is a 2020-term strictly increasing geometric sequence with an integer common ratio . Every second, Alesha erases the two smallest terms on her paper and replaces them with their geometric mean, while Belinda erases the two largest terms in her paper and replaces them with their geometric mean. They continue this process until Alesha is left with a single value and Belinda is left with a single value . Let be the minimal value of such that is an integer. If is the number of positive factors of , what is the closest integer to ?