Find all pairs of integers satisfying .
Solution
Answer: and .
Since and are coprime, and are also coprime. Similarly and are coprime. Hence the equality can hold only in the case and , where the signs in both equations are the same.
Let both signs be pluses. Then from the first equation we get . The second equation implies , whence . If , then , i.e. . If , then by dividing by we get ; since , this equation does not have integer solutions.
If both signs are minuses then by multiplying by we get and . These are the same equations with respect to and which we had previously with respect to and , hence the only solution is i.e. .
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