Show that one can choose 8 pairwise distinct numbers among , such that none of them is a perfect square and that no sum of the several of them is a perfect square.
Solution
Consider the following 7 numbers: . Clearly, the sum of any subset of them is such that the highest power of that divides the sum is odd, thus, it is not a perfect square.
Add number to the chosen numbers. Suppose it is possible to choose several numbers such that their sum is a perfect square. Then is one of such numbers, otherwise we get a contradiction as shown above. Since a perfect square can only have a remainder , or when divided by , and since the sum is odd, then the only possible remainder is . However, only numbers and have a non-zero remainder when divided by , thus, it is not possible to obtain a sum with remainder when divided by .
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