Maths Olympiad Prep

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, 2003

Algebra Difficulty 4.8 AIME Find the answer Italy

Problem:

For how many pairs (p,q)(p, q) of (positive) prime numbers does the polynomial x2+px+qx^{2}+p x+q have two integer roots? NOTE: Recall that 1 is not a prime number.

Pick one

Solution

Solution:

The answer is (B). Indeed, let aa and bb be the two integer roots of the polynomial. We then have (xa)(xb)=x2(a+b)x+ab=x2+px+q(x-a)(x-b)=x^{2}-(a+b)x+ab=x^{2}+p x+q, from which:
a+b=p,ab=q a+b=-p, \quad ab=q
Since qq is a prime, from the second relation we deduce that a,b=±1a, b= \pm 1 or a,b=±qa, b= \pm q. Since a+ba+b must be negative, we have a=1a=-1 and b=qb=-q (or vice versa). Hence we obtain 1q=p1+q=p-1-q=-p \Rightarrow 1+q=p, that is, pp is the successor of qq. Since the only two consecutive primes are 2 and 3, we get p=3p=3 and q=2q=2, and therefore there is exactly one solution.

Let a,ba, b be the two possible integer roots. Then we have x2+px+q=(xa)(xb)x^{2}+p x+q=(x-a)(x-b), from which a+b=pa+b=-p and ab=qab=q. Since qq is prime, from the second condition we obtain a=±1,±qa= \pm 1, \pm q and correspondingly b=±q,±1b= \pm q, \pm 1. Possibly swapping aa and bb, we may assume that a=±1,b=±qa= \pm 1, b= \pm q. The first condition requires that bb be negative, so a=1,b=qa=-1, b=-q and pq=1p-q=1. The only primes differing by 1 are 2 and 3. Therefore we only have the pair (3,2), corresponding to a=1,b=3a=-1, b=-3.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement translated into English from it; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.