Find the smallest positive integer such that is an exact 5th power, is an exact 6th power, and is an exact 7th power.
Solution
Let . where is a product of primes different from , , and . For a number to be an exact 5th power, all the exponents in the prime factorisation of must be divisible by . Similarly for 6th and 7th powers.
For primes other than , , and the exponent in the prime decomposition of must be or a multiple of . The smallest solution will occur when each exponent is . Thus we can consider only numbers of the form .
For the conditions to be satisfied we must have , and . The smallest solution of this is . To obtain we need to solve
The smallest solution is . As satisfies the same equations, the smallest value of is also . Finally, has to satisfy
The smallest solution is . Putting everything together, the smallest value of is .
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