Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 5.5 AIME, harder Prove it Canada

Problem:
Show that there are no integers a,b,ca, b, c for which a2+b28c=6a^{2} + b^{2} - 8c = 6.

Solution

Solution:
Suppose there exist integers a,b,ca, b, c such that a2+b28c=6a^{2} + b^{2} - 8c = 6.

Then a2+b2=8c+6a^{2} + b^{2} = 8c + 6.

Consider a2+b2a^{2} + b^{2} modulo 88.

The possible quadratic residues modulo 88 are 0,1,40, 1, 4 (since 0200^{2} \equiv 0, 1211^{2} \equiv 1, 2242^{2} \equiv 4, 3213^{2} \equiv 1, 4204^{2} \equiv 0, 5215^{2} \equiv 1, 6246^{2} \equiv 4, 7217^{2} \equiv 1 modulo 88).

So a2+b2a^{2} + b^{2} modulo 88 can be 0+0=00+0=0, 0+1=10+1=1, 0+4=40+4=4, 1+1=21+1=2, 1+4=51+4=5, 4+4=04+4=0.
Thus, the possible values for a2+b2a^{2} + b^{2} modulo 88 are 0,1,2,4,50, 1, 2, 4, 5.

But a2+b2=8c+66(mod8)a^{2} + b^{2} = 8c + 6 \equiv 6 \pmod{8}.

66 is not among the possible values for a2+b2a^{2} + b^{2} modulo 88.

Therefore, there are no integers a,b,ca, b, c for which a2+b28c=6a^{2} + b^{2} - 8c = 6.

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