fraise wrote:
Thanks Brent. Well, I just think that you can indeed know that 300 makes it work, but it was hard for me to figure out that it was the smallest integer... Although you can write 300=3*100 and with the 90 you'll end up with a power 3 on the 10...
I should mention that there is a more mathematical way to determine a good value for x.
Since our goal is to make cube_root(90x) an integer, we need 90x to be equal to the CUBE of some integer.
In other words, we want 90x = k³ (where k is some integer)
The prime factorization of 90 = (2)(3)(3)(5)
So, if we add to the above prime factorization two more
2's, one more
3 and two more
5's, we get: (2)(
2)(
2)(3)(3)(
3)(5)(
5)(
5)
Notice that (2)(
2)(
2)(3)(3)(
3)(5)(
5)(5)(
5) is the CUBE of an integer.
We know this because: (2)(
2)(
2)(3)(3)(
3)(5)(
5)(
5) = [(2)(3)(5)] * [(
2)(
3)(
5)] * [(
2)(3)(
5)] = [(2)(3)(5)]³
Notice that by adding two more
2's, one more
3 and two more
5's to the prime factorization, we are basically multiplying by 300 (since (
2)(
2)(
3)(
5)(
5) = 300