Thursday, October 13, 2016

mathematics - Express the number 2015 using only the digit 2 twice


Can you use only two instances of the digit 2, along with the mathematical operations below, to create an expression that evaluates to 2015?


Allowed operations:




  • arithmetic operations: addition (+), subtraction (), multiplication (×), division (÷, or xy), exponentiation (like 22);




  • factorial (!), absolute value (|...|);





  • extraction of the root of any degree in a form ab or the square root in a form b;




  • trigonometric functions: sine, cosine, tangent, cotangent, secant, cosecant




  • inverse trigonometric functions: arcsine, arccosine, arctangent, arccotangent, arcsecant, arccosecant





  • natural logarithm (lnb), or logarithm with any base (logab)




Parentheses () are also allowed.


What is not allowed:




  • digits other than 2, or more than two instances of the digit 2





  • named constants such as π,e, etc...




  • defining and using your own functions




  • other variables




Example with three 2s:



A couple of years ago, I managed to solve the same kind of problem, with three 2s:



We can express any natural number A using three 2s and the above operations, like this: log2log2...2Asquareroots



But I couldn't crack the problem using only two 2s...



Answer



This answer describes a method using trigonometric operations to obtain the square root of any rational number from 0. In this answer, Daniil Agashiyev notes that tanarcsincosarctancosarctann=n+1.


Using this, we can write 2015 as:


(tanarcsincosarctancosarctan2011 times2)2


or even with only one 2:



tanarcsincosarctancosarctan201524 times2




Unlike the linked problem, we're allowed to use the secant and cosecant here, so we can use secarctan or \newcommand{\arccot}{\operatorname{arccot}}\csc\arccot for the same effect.


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