In: Advanced Math
4. The check digit for ISBNs is one of the numbers 0, 1, 2, . . . , 9, or the letter X. One of the your fellow students comments ”Gee, it sure is a pain to have to use that X all time. Why don’t they just compute the check digit sum modulo 10 instead of modulo 11, so that we can get rid of the X?” Would this plan work? Prove your answer.
Assume that all ISBNs are 10 digits with the tenth digit the check digit. I know that using modulo 10 to compute the check digit will catch single digit errors, but it will not always catch errors regarding transposition of numbers in the ISBN. I am having a difficult time proving that the transposition errors will not always be caught.