Problem:
2000 distinct positive integers are written down, and it so happens that the product of any 3 different numbers from this list is a square. Prove that each one of them is a square.
Problem:
2000 distinct positive integers are written down, and it so happens that the product of any 3 different numbers from this list is a square. Prove that each one of them is a square.
Solution:
Let be any number in the list; we wish to prove that is a square. Let , , be any three other elements of the list, all different from each other. Then, the given implies that there are integers , , with , , . Multiplying these together gives ; equivalently,
So is the square of a rational number, but since it is an integer, we conclude that it is the square of an integer, as needed.