How many zeros are there at the end of 100!?

1 Answer
Jun 28, 2016

24

Explanation:

There are plenty of factors 2 in 100!, so the question is how many factors 5 are there?

100! has 100/5=20 terms divisible by 5^1, namely 5, 10, 15, 20,..., 100

It has 100/25 = 4 terms divisible by 5^2, namely 25, 50, 75, 100.

So there are a total of 20+4 = 24 factors 5 in 100!.

Hence 100! is divisible by 10^24 and no greater power of 10.

So 100! ends with 24 zeros.

A computer tells me that:

100! = 93,326,215,443,944,152,681,699,238,856,266,700,490,715,
968,264,381,621,468,592,963,895,217,599,993,229,915,608,941,463,
976,156,518,286,253,697,920,827,223,758,251,185,210,916,864,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000