Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 4.7 AIME Prove it United States

Problem:
Find all positive integers nn such that n(n+1)n(n+1) is a perfect square.

Solution

Solution:
Since nn and n+1n+1 are coprime numbers, if n(n+1)n(n+1) is a perfect square, then each of nn and n+1n+1 has to be a perfect square itself. However, that is impossible since if n=x2n = x^{2} and n+1=y2n+1 = y^{2} we would have 1=y2x2=(yx)(y+x)1 = y^{2} - x^{2} = (y - x)(y + x) and 11 can't be expressed as a product of two different integers. Hence there are no such integers.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.