Question 12
What do you notice about the number of zeros at the end of a number and the number of zeros at the end of its square? Will this always happen? Can we say that squares can only have an even number of zeros at the end?
A number ending in zeros can be written as a product of another number and a power of 10.
Step 1 — Observing the pattern
Let us look at some examples of numbers ending in zeros and their squares. We will count the number of zeros at the end of each number.

Step 2 — Explaining the pattern
Let a number be . Suppose has zeros at its end. This means can be written as . Here, is a whole number that does not end in zero. For example, if , then and . Now, let us find the square of .
We use the exponent rule .
We use another exponent rule .
Since does not end in zero, is not a multiple of 10. This means the prime factors of do not include both 2 and 5. Therefore, will also not end in zero. For example, if , . If , . So, the number of zeros at the end of is determined by the part. The term means there are zeros. Since is the number of zeros in the original number, is double the number of zeros.
Step 3 — Concluding about perfect squares
From Step 2, we found that if a number has zeros at its end, its square will have zeros at its end. The number can be any whole number (0, 1, 2, 3, ...). The number of zeros in the square, , will always be an even number. For example, if , (an even number). If , (an even number). If , (an even number). So, any perfect square that ends in zeros must have an even number of zeros.
Answer
(i) We notice that the number of zeros at the end of a square is double the number of zeros at the end of the original number. (ii) Yes, this will always happen. (iii) Consequently, we can say that perfect squares can only have an even number of zeros at the end.
More questions in IT
Context: Queen Ratnamanjuri left a puzzle in her will for her son Khoisnam and 99 relatives. They are in a room with 100 lockers, numbered 1 to 100.
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- Person 4 toggles every 4th locker (4th, 8th, 12th, ...). This continues until all 100 get their turn.
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