Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /31 of 121

Number theory Difficulty 5.6 AIME, harder Prove it India

Problem:
Find all primes pp and qq, and even numbers n>2n>2, satisfying the equation
pn+pn1++p+1=q2+q+1 p^{n}+p^{n-1}+\cdots+p+1=q^{2}+q+1

Solution

Solution:
Obviously pqp \neq q. We write this in the form
p(pn1+pn2++1)=q(q+1) p\left(p^{n-1}+p^{n-2}+\cdots+1\right)=q(q+1)
If qpn/21q \leq p^{n / 2}-1, then q<pn/2q<p^{n / 2} and hence we see that q2<pnq^{2}<p^{n}. Thus we obtain
q2+q<pn+pn/2<pn+pn1++p q^{2}+q<p^{n}+p^{n / 2}<p^{n}+p^{n-1}+\cdots+p
since n>2n>2. It follows that qpn/2q \geq p^{n / 2}. Since n>2n>2 and is an even number, n/2n / 2 is a natural number larger than 1. This implies that qpn/2q \neq p^{n / 2} by the given condition that qq is a prime. We conclude that qpn/2+1q \geq p^{n / 2}+1. We may also write the above relation in the form
p(pn/21)(pn/2+1)=(p1)q(q+1) p\left(p^{n / 2}-1\right)\left(p^{n / 2}+1\right)=(p-1) q(q+1)
This shows that qq divides (pn/21)(pn/2+1)\left(p^{n / 2}-1\right)\left(p^{n / 2}+1\right). But qpn/2+1q \geq p^{n / 2}+1 and qq is a prime. Hence the only possibility is q=pn/2+1q=p^{n / 2}+1. This gives
p(pn/21)=(p1)(q+1)=(p1)(pn/2+2) p\left(p^{n / 2}-1\right)=(p-1)(q+1)=(p-1)\left(p^{n / 2}+2\right)
Simplification leads to 3p=pn/2+23 p=p^{n / 2}+2. This shows that pp divides 22. Thus p=2p=2 and hence q=5,n=4q=5, n=4. It is easy to verify that these indeed satisfy the given equation.

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

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