Find all pairs of integers and satisfying
Solution
(Belarus MO 2014 Category B Problem 2 modified) The only solutions are where is any integer.
We have
When , the equation always holds. Now we may assume . It remains to solve . This means
If , we have , which is a contradiction. If , this is a quadratic equation in . The discriminant is
When , the equation (1) becomes . The only solution is . When , we need . This implies . Note that should be a perfect square since is an integer. We check the value of one by one as follows.
| b | -3 | -2 | -1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| c | 28 | 65 | 96 | 140 | 153 | 160 | 161 | 156 | 145 | 128 | 105 | 76 | 41 |
None of these is a perfect square. Therefore, the only solutions are and .
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