MathDB
Numbers on circle

Source: St Petersburg Olympiad 2008, Grade 11, P4

August 30, 2017
number theory

Problem Statement

There are 100100 numbers on circle, and no one number is divided by other. In same time for all numbers we make next operation: If (a,b)(a,b) are two neighbors (aa is left neighbor) , then we write between a,ba,b number a(a,b)\frac{a}{(a,b)} and erase a,ba,b This operation was repeated some times. What maximum number of 11 we can receive ?
Example: If we have circle with 33 numbers 4,5,64,5,6 then after operation we receive circle with numbers 4(4,5)=4,5(5,6)=5,6(6,4)=3\frac{4}{(4,5)}=4,\frac{5}{(5,6)}=5, \frac{6}{(6,4)}=3.