Power Play (Exponents) | FIO

Question 14

A digital locker has an alphanumeric (it can have both digits and letters) passcode of length 5. Some example codes are G89P0, 38098, BRJKW, and 003AZ. How many such codes are possible?

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Solution
Understand the Question
  • An alphanumeric passcode of length 55 can contain both digits (00 to 99) and letters (A\text{A} to Z\text{Z}).
  • For each of the 55 positions, the total number of choices is the sum of the available digits (1010) and letters (2626).
  • By the multiplication principle of counting, the total number of possible passcodes is obtained by multiplying the number of choices for each of the 55 independent positions (36536^5).

Step 1 · Find the Number of Choices per Position

An alphanumeric character can be a digit (00 through 99) or a letter (A\text{A} through Z\text{Z}).Diagram 1

Number of digits=10\text{Number of digits} = 10 Number of letters=26\text{Number of letters} = 26

Total choices per position=Number of digits+Number of letters=10+26=36\begin{aligned} \text{Total choices per position} &= \text{Number of digits} + \text{Number of letters} \\[0.6em] &= 10 + 26 \\[0.6em] &= 36 \end{aligned}

Step 2 · Calculate the Total Number of Possible Passcodes

Since each of the 55 character positions has 3636 independent choices:

Total number of codes=Choices for position 1×Choices for position 2×Choices for position 3×Choices for position 4×Choices for position 5=36×36×36×36×36=365=60,466,176\begin{aligned} \text{Total number of codes} &= \text{Choices for position 1} \times \text{Choices for position 2} \times \text{Choices for position 3} \times \text{Choices for position 4} \times \text{Choices for position 5} \\[0.6em] &= 36 \times 36 \times 36 \times 36 \times 36 \\[0.6em] &= 36^5 \\[0.6em] &= 60{,}466{,}176 \end{aligned}
Answer

60,466,176

Common Mistakes
  • Digit Count Error: Counting only 99 single digits instead of 1010 (digits range from 00 to 99).
  • Addition vs Multiplication: Adding the choices across the 55 positions (36×5=18036 \times 5 = 180) instead of multiplying them (36536^5).
  • Case Sensitivity: Assuming distinct lowercase and uppercase letters (5252 letters instead of 2626) when standard alphanumeric codes are not specified as case-sensitive.

More questions in FIO

Q1

Express the following in exponential form:

(i) 6×6×6×66 \times 6 \times 6 \times 6

(ii) y×yy \times y

(iii) b×b×b×bb \times b \times b \times b

(iv) 5×5×7×7×75 \times 5 \times 7 \times 7 \times 7

(v) 2×2×a×a2 \times 2 \times a \times a

(vi) a×a×a×c×c×c×c×da \times a \times a \times c \times c \times c \times c \times d

Q2

Express each of the following as a product of powers of their prime factors in exponential form:

(i) 648

(ii) 405

(iii) 540

(iv) 3600

Q3

Write the numerical value of each of the following:

(i) 2×1032 \times 10^3

(ii) 72×237^2 \times 2^3

(iii) 3×443 \times 4^4

(iv) (3)2×(5)2(-3)^2 \times (-5)^2

(v) 32×1043^2 \times 10^4

(vi) (2)5×(10)6(-2)^5 \times (-10)^6

Q4

Find out the units digit in the value of 2224÷4322^{224} \div 4^{32}? [Hint: 4=224 = 2^2]

Q5

There are 5 bottles in a container. Every day, a new container is brought in. How many bottles would there be after 40 days?

Q6

Write the given number as the product of two or more powers in three different ways. The powers can be any integers.

(i) 64364^3 (ii) 1928192^8 (iii) 32532^{-5}

Q7

Examine each statement below and find out if it is 'Always True', 'Only Sometimes True', or 'Never True'. Explain your reasoning.

(i) Cube numbers are also square numbers.

(ii) Fourth powers are also square numbers.

(iii) The fifth power of a number is divisible by the cube of that number.

(iv) The product of two cube numbers is a cube number.

(v) q46q^{46} is both a 4th power and a 6th power (qq is a prime number).

Q8

Simplify and write these in the exponential form.

(i) 102×10510^{-2} \times 10^{-5}

(ii) 57÷545^7 \div 5^4

(iii) 97÷949^{-7} \div 9^4

(iv) (132)3(13^{-2})^{-3}

(v) m5n12(mn)9m^5 n^{12} (mn)^9

Q9

If 122=14412^2 = 144, what is

(i) (1.2)2(1.2)^2

(ii) (0.12)2(0.12)^2

(iii) (0.012)2(0.012)^2

(iv) 1202120^2

Q10

Circle the numbers that are the same—

24×3664×32610182×626242^4 \times 3^6 \qquad 6^4 \times 3^2 \qquad 6^{10} \qquad 18^2 \times 6^2 \qquad 6^{24}

Q11

Identify the greater number in each of the following—

(i) 434^3 or 343^4

(ii) 282^8 or 828^2

(iii) 1002100^2 or 21002^{100}

Q12

A dairy plans to produce 8.5 billion packets of milk in a year. They want a unique ID (identifier) code for each packet. If they choose to use the digits 0099, how many digits should the code consist of?

Q13

64 is a square number (828^2) and a cube number (434^3). Are there other numbers that are both squares and cubes? Is there a way to describe such numbers in general?

Q14

A digital locker has an alphanumeric (it can have both digits and letters) passcode of length 5. Some example codes are G89P0, 38098, BRJKW, and 003AZ. How many such codes are possible?

Q15

The worldwide population of sheep (2024) is about 10910^9, and that of goats is also about the same. What is the total population of sheep and goats?

(i) 20920^9

(ii) 101110^{11}

(iii) 101010^{10}

(iv) 101810^{18}

(v) 2×1092 \times 10^9

(vi) 109+10910^9 + 10^9

Q16

Calculate and write the answer in scientific notation:

(i) If each person in the world had 30 pieces of clothing, find the total number of pieces of clothing.

(ii) There are about 100 million bee colonies in the world. Find the number of honeybees if each colony has about 50,000 bees.

(iii) The human body has about 38 trillion bacterial cells. Find the bacterial population residing in all humans in the world.

(iv) Total time spent eating in a lifetime in seconds.

Q17

What was the date 1 arab/1 billion seconds ago?

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