The Number of Zeros in 50! (50 Factorial)

How Many Zeros Are in 50 Factorial? Find Out Here!

The problem to be solved is as follows: How many zeros are at the end of 50! (50 factorial)? Note: 50! = 50*49*48*47*....*4*3*2*1

Here, I offer two solutions.

First Solution: The multiples of ten which are components of 50! (without reusing any of the multiples) are (5*2), 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, (15*4), (25*6), (35*8), (45*12),
 

Multiplying these together, we have 1.63296*1017 = 163,296,000,000,000,000

There are 12 zeros in this number - which is the same number of zeros as in 50!, since no other factors of 50! can be multiplied together to produce multiples of ten. Thus, 50! has 12 zeros.

Second Solution: Each multiple of 5 - taken together with some even number - contributes a multiple of 10. Each multiple of 25, however - taken together with some even number - contributes two multiples of 10. So we can count the number of multiples of 5 in 50!. Then we can add another count of the number of multiples of 25 in 50!. There are 2 multiples of 25 in 50! (25 and 50) and 10 multiples of 5 (5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50). 2+10 = 12. Thus, there are a total of 12 zeros in 50!

Related information
It is not necessary to multiply out a large number in order to find out the number of zeros in it.
 
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A=1^1 * 2^2 * 3^3 * 4^4 *...100^100 . How many zeros at the end of A?

Posted on 02/16/2009 at 8:02:40 AM

Note: The multiples of 25 must be used with multiples of 4 in order to guarantee two multiples of 10 per multiple of 25. But there are many more multiples of 4 in 50! than there are multiples of 25, so this can always be done.

Posted on 02/08/2008 at 2:02:49 PM

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