Mathematics I / Number Theory in Action
Practice question · Numerical answer

An ISBN-10 has digits d1 through d10 and must satisfy: 1 x d1 + 2 x d2 + ... + 10 x d10 is congruent to 0 mod 11. The first nine digits are 0, 3, 0, 6, 4, 0, 6, 1, 5. Find the check digit d10.

Hints
  1. Compute the weighted sum of the first nine digits, then reduce it modulo 11.
  2. The weighted sum is 145, and 145 = 11 x 13 + 2. Note that the weight 10 is congruent to -1 mod 11.
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2

Why

The weighted sum of the first nine digits is 6 + 24 + 20 + 42 + 8 + 45 = 145, which is 2 mod 11. Since the tenth weight 10 is congruent to -1, we need 2 - d10 congruent to 0, so d10 = 2. (This is the real ISBN 0-306-40615-2.) Changing any single digit breaks the congruence, which is exactly how the check catches errors.

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