Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 5.5 AIME, harder Prove it Soviet Union

Problem:

An infinite arithmetic progression contains a square. Prove it contains infinitely many squares.

Solution

Solution:

Let the square be a2a^{2} and the difference dd, so that all numbers of the form a2+nda^{2} + nd belong to the arithmetic progression (for nn a natural number). Take nn to be 2a+dr22a + dr^{2}, then a2+nd=(a+dr)2a^{2} + nd = (a + dr)^{2}.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.