Correct solutions were submitted by Paul Botham, Philippe Fondanaiche,
Jens Voss, Ahron Teitelman.
Write a solution in the form ab/bc = a/c. I'll ignore the (trivial) solutions having a = b or b = 0 and assume that a, b, c are one-digit numbers in the range 1 £ a, b, c £ 9. There are then just four (non-trivial) solutions:
16/64 = 1/4, 19/95 = 1/5, 26/65 = 2/5, 49/98 = 4/8.
Of course, you can find these with a simple computer program which checks all 93 possibilities, but where's the fun in that? A little simple algebra reduces the number of cases to check to very small number.
Write the basic equation as
(10a + b) / (10b + c) = a / c
and simplify to read
10a×(c - b) = c×(a - b). (***)
Suppose that a > b. Then a/c = ab/bc
> 1 and a > c. Since the right-hand side of (***)
is then positive, it must be the case that c > b, too.
But then
So a < b, and arguing as in the previous paragraph, c < b as well. Since 2 and 5 divide the left-hand side of (***), it follows that either
5 divides c and 2 divides a - b, or 2 divides c and 5 divides a - b.
Suppose the first case holds. Since c is
a one-digit number, it follows that c = 5 and then
Suppose the second case holds. Then 5 =
Philippe Fondanaiche and Jens Voss observe that each of the examples forms the first in an infinite chain of such monstrous coincidences.
1/4 = 16/64 = 166/664 = 1666/6664 = ...
1/5 = 19/95 = 199/995 = 1999/9995 = ...
2/5 = 26/65 = 266/665 = 2666/6665 = ...
4/8 = 49/98 = 499/998 = 4999/9998 = ...
Additional larger examples abound: 484/847 = 4/7, 654/545 = 6/5, 4324/3243 = 4/3, 4582/1264 = 58/16, 3346/1673 = 34/17, 4455/3564 = 45/36.
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