, 2013

Number theory Difficulty 5.1 AIME, harder Prove it Slovenia

What is the greatest common divisor of the numbers $11n + 4$ and $7n + 2$ , where $n$ is a positive integer?

Solution

The greatest common divisor of $11n+4$ and $7n+2$ also divides $7(11n+4) - 11(7n+2) = 6$ , so it can be at most $6$ . If $n=4$ , then $11n+4 = 48$ and $7n+2 = 30$ , and the greatest common divisor of these two numbers is $6$ . Hence, the answer is $6$ .

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