Find all positive integers for which is a perfect square.
Solution
Let be even, . Then is even, so is a perfect square.
If is odd it can be written as , . In this case
For to be a perfect square both and have to be perfect squares since they are coprime. Hence, and . This implies . There are two possibilities, or . Both imply , so is the only odd number with the required property.
There is another way to deal with the case where is a perfect square. The quadratic equation has two solutions, , so or, equivalently, . This implies , so .
We conclude that is a perfect square if and only if or is even.
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