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Irish Mathematical Olympiad

Number theory Difficulty 5.1 AIME, harder Prove it Ireland

Find the smallest positive integer mm such that 5m5m is an exact 5th power, 6m6m is an exact 6th power, and 7m7m is an exact 7th power.

Solution

Let m=2a⋅3b⋅5c⋅7dm = 2^a \cdot 3^b \cdot 5^c \cdot 7^d. NN where NN is a product of primes different from 22, 33, 55 and 77. For a number nn to be an exact 5th power, all the exponents in the prime factorisation of nn must be divisible by 55. Similarly for 6th and 7th powers.
For primes other than 22, 33, 55 and 77 the exponent in the prime decomposition of mm must be 00 or a multiple of 5×6×7=2105 \times 6 \times 7 = 210. The smallest solution will occur when each exponent is 00. Thus we can consider only numbers of the form 2a⋅3b⋅5c⋅7d2^a \cdot 3^b \cdot 5^c \cdot 7^d.
For the conditions to be satisfied we must have 5∣c+15 \mid c+1, 6∣c6 \mid c and 7∣c7 \mid c. The smallest solution of this is c=84c = 84. To obtain aa we need to solve
a≡0(mod5)a+1≡0(mod6)a≡0(mod7). a \equiv 0 \pmod{5} \quad a+1 \equiv 0 \pmod{6} \quad a \equiv 0 \pmod{7}.
The smallest solution is 3535. As bb satisfies the same equations, the smallest value of bb is also 3535. Finally, dd has to satisfy
d≡0(mod5)d≡0(mod6)d+1≡0(mod7). d \equiv 0 \pmod{5} \quad d \equiv 0 \pmod{6} \quad d+1 \equiv 0 \pmod{7}.
The smallest solution is d=90d = 90. Putting everything together, the smallest value of mm is 584⋅635⋅7905^{84} \cdot 6^{35} \cdot 7^{90}.

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