Let be an integer greater than or equal to , and let , , be positive integers, and , , be integers greater than or equal to and less than or equal to . Define
Determine all possible combinations if .
Solutions — 2
Solution 1
We may assume without loss of generality that . Since , we can represent
by choosing with () suitably.
Set ().
Now let us separate the two cases:
* When .
We have
Since , we get and . Consequently, we see that is a multiple of , and from , we must have . This in turn implies that and hence , and in the same way as above we conclude that .
Repeating this argument we obtain that , which implies that , which, in turn, contradicts the assumption that are all positive integers. Thus, we see that there are no triples which satisfy the requirements in this case.
* When .
In this case
is valid, and we can conclude that hold as in the case where . If we let (), then we have
Since is a multiple of as , and since , we have . If we assume that , then we get , contradicting . Thus, we get , and .
Conversely, if , we will show that which satisfy the requirement exist. Since we have
if we can find satisfying , () for some odd integer , then such a pair together with will satisfy the desired conditions. By checking odd numbers in turn starting with , we find that the quadruple satisfies the requirement. Thus, the only triple to satisfy the requirement of the problem is .
Solution 2
If we rewrite the relation by using the summation formula for the geometric series, we get
By multiplying both sides of the equation above by , we get
Since imply that holds, we get . We similarly get . We can also assume that without loss of generality.
Assume that . Considering the equation (*) in , we get . However, since
hold, we get a contradiction. Thus, we conclude that .
If we then divide both sides of the equation (*) by , we obtain
Suppose now . If we consider both sides of the equation above in , then we get . However, since
hold, we get a contradiction. Therefore, we must have .
Summarizing we get
and furthermore, since
we obtain .
If we suppose , then we get , so we conclude that holds, since . However, if we consider both sides of in , we get , which gives a contradiction. As , we conclude from that . We can get satisfying the conditions of the problem when as in the preceding solution to the problem.