How many zeros does 100! end with?

Search through the forums (read the math book). There is several threads discussing this.

The number of trailing zeros in 100! is (100/5)+(100/25)=24

Answer : (b)

the question can be re-framed as (100!/10^x) now find x?

100!/(2*5)^x---now factorize 100! by 2 and 5

when factorized by 5 will give the least power 24
Ans 24

Is this a relevant GMAT question? Thank you.

Why do you think that it's not? I've seen several GMAT questions testing the trailing zeros concept (everything-about-factorials-on-the-gmat-85592.html):
factorial-one-106060.html
product-of-sequence-101187.html
how-many-zeroes-at-the-end-of-101752.html
least-value-of-n-m09q33-76716.html
number-properties-from-gmatprep-84770.html

Hi Bunuel,

just a question that I have in mind:

You ALWAYS divide by 5? You never divide by another prime factor for those type of questions?

if yes what are the exceptions?

Thanks!

For trailing zeros we need only the power of 5. Check here for theory: everything-about-factorials-on-the-gmat-85592.html

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Hope it helps.

What does this question test?

It asks for the number of zeros 100! ends with. If a number ends with zero it has to be a multiple of 10. So essentially we have to find out how many times in 100! does multiplication by 10 happen. But multiplication by 10 also happens when multiplication by both 5 and 2 happen. So it is better to see the factors of the number and then find the number of times multiplication by all those factors happen.

Consider the simpler example. 4*5*6. How many zeros does it end with?

We see 2 occurs twice in 4 which is 2*2, and once in 6 which is 2*3 and 5 occurs only once. So 5 is a limiting factor. Since 5 occurs only once, the number of times multiplication by both 5 and 2 happen or in other words the number of times multiplication by 10 happens or the number of zeros the number ends with is only 1.

In the case of 100!, 5 occurs in 5, 10, 15, 20 and so on up to 100 i.e, 20 times. But remember 5 occurs twice in 25 which is 5*5 , twice in 50 which is 5*5*2 and similarly twice each in 75 and 100. So it actually occurs 24 times.

2 occurs a lot more times and so 5 is the limiting factor.

Applying the same logic as in the simpler example, the number of zeros 100! ends with is 24.

Hi Guys,

Am still abit confused about the whole concept. Some clarification would be appreciated.

With the formula, I see that the trailing zeros for the following are:
1) For 32!, (32/5) + (32/25) = 7
2) For 25!, (25/5) + (25/25) = 6
3) For 10!, (10/5) = 2
4) For 5!, (5/5) = 1

However, as i plug the numbers in and count on the calculator, the answer is different
1) For 32!, 263,130,836,933,693,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. A total of 21 trailing zeros
2) For 25!, 15,511,210,043,331,000,000,000,000. A total of 12 trailing zeros
3) For 10!, 3,628,800. A total of 2 trailing zeros
4) For 5!, 120. A total of 1 trailing zeros

Why is it that the first 2 doesnt comply whereas the last 2 does. I mean I understand the answer is correct here but am just trying to get my head around this.

Use better calculator: https://www.wolframalpha.com

I think there is some problem with the calculator that you are using

32! = 263130836933693530167218012160000000
25! = 15511210043330985984000000
Both of these values comply with our understanding.

You can try the calculation here: https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculato ... orials.php

Hi All,

I have found a faster approach to solve these kind of questions:

For trailing zero's: we need to check how many 5's are there in the number. So we can just divide the n by 5 and add the quotients:

100!
5 | 100
5 | 20
5 | 4
5 | 0

Add 20+4+0 = 24

We are looking the number of 2-and-5 pairs in 100! since each pair produces a factor of 10 and thus a 0 at the end of 100!. There are more factors of 2 than 5 in 100!, so the question is: how many factors 5 are there?

We can use the following trick: Divide 100 by 5 and its subsequent quotients by 5 as long as the quotient is nonzero (and each time ignore any nonzero remainder). The final step is add up all these nonzero quotients and that will be the number of factors of 5 in 100!.

100/5 = 20

20/5 = 4

Since 4/5 has a zero quotient, we can stop here. We see that 20 + 4 = 24, so there are 24 factors 5 (and hence 10) in 100!. So 100! ends with 24 zeros.

Answer: B

I took 100! in excel, and I've got this = 9.3326E+157
So, 100! ends with a lot more 0 than 24.

Did i miss something?
Really appreciated for explanation.

In short - don't trust Excel, trust experts above.

100! = 93326215443944152681699238856266700490715968264381621468592963895
217599993229915608941463976156518286253697920827223758251185210916864
000000000000000000000000

To find the number of 0's in 100! let us find the number of [5's] in 100!

=> \(\frac{100 }{ 5}\) + \(\frac{100 }{ (5^2)}\) + \(\frac{100 }{ (5^3)}\)

=> 20 + 4 + 0

=> 24

Answer B

\(\frac{100}{5}=20\)

Or, \(\frac{20}{5}=4\)

Total no of zeros is 24 , Answer must be (B)

Answer choices makes no sense:

100! = 93,326,215,443,944,200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

That is a load of zeros.

and 32! = 263,130,836,933,694,000,000,000,000,000,000,000