Tuesday, 1 March 2016

elementary number theory - Finding the last digit of $3^{729}$



I'm practicing for my algebra exam but I stumbled on a question I don't know how to solve.





Let $N = 3^{729}$. What is the last digit of $N$?




The example answer says




Since $\gcd(3, 10) = 1$, check that
$3^4 = 81 = 1 \pmod {10}$:
Now, $729 = 182 \times 4 + 1,$ so we get we get (that might be a typo or missed a step)
$3^{729} = 3 \pmod {10}$.





Can anybody help me with this question? Thanks so much!


Answer



Every digit 0 thru 9 has a pattern of 4 digits when raised to an exponential power. Simply divide the power by 4 and the remainder shows you where you are at in the pattern. Here are the patterns for all 10 digits. Note that remainder 1 corresponds to the first digit in the pattern and remainder 2 corresponds to the second digit in the pattern. Remainder 3 corresponds to the third digit and remainder 0 (the power is divisible by 4) corresponds to the fourth digit in the pattern. Try a few yourself using a calculator and you will get the hang of it.



0,0,0,0   
1,1,1,1
2,4,8,6
3,9,7,1

4,6,4,6
5,5,5,5
6,6,6,6
7,9,3,1
8,4,2,6
9,1,9,1

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