Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /315 of 1394

, 2019

Number theory Difficulty 5.0 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:
Determine the second smallest positive integer nn such that n3+n2+n+1n^{3}+n^{2}+n+1 is a perfect square.

Solution

Solution:
n3+n2+n+1=(n+1)(n2+1)n^{3}+n^{2}+n+1 = (n+1)(n^{2}+1). Note that gcd(n2+1,n+1)=gcd(2,n+1)=1\gcd(n^{2}+1, n+1) = \gcd(2, n+1) = 1 or 22, and since n2+1n^{2}+1 is not a perfect square for n1n \geq 1, we must have n2+1=2p2n^{2}+1 = 2p^{2} and n+1=2q2n+1 = 2q^{2} for some integers pp and qq. The first equation is a variant of Pell's equation, which (either by brute-forcing small cases or using the known recurrence) gives solutions (n,p)=(1,1),(7,5),(n, p) = (1, 1), (7, 5), \ldots Incidentally, both smallest solutions n=1n=1 and n=7n=7 allow an integer solution to the second equation, so n=7n=7 is the second smallest integer that satisfies the condition.

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