Here is a cute example of the power of theory of congruences. Monster numbers can be tamed !!
Question :
Find the last two digits of .
Solution:
A famous mathematician, George Polya said that a good problem solving technique is to solve an analagous less difficult problem.
So, for example, if the problem posed was “find the last two digits of 2479”. How do we go about it? Find the remainder upon division by 100. Now, how does it relate to congruences ? Modulo 100 numbers !
So, the problem reduces to — find out .
Now, what is the stumbling block…the exponent makes the whole problem very ugly. But,
, which means
, that is,
,
also, use the fact
Hence,
So, now we need to compute
Hence, .
-Nalin Pithwa.