Problem:
Determine all triples of strictly positive integers such that
- ;
- ;
- is a divisor of , is a divisor of and is a divisor of .
Problem:
Determine all triples of strictly positive integers such that
- ;
- ;
- is a divisor of , is a divisor of and is a divisor of .
Solution:
The only solution triples are , and .
Let us first show that are pairwise coprime (we only show that ; for the other pairs the proof is the same).
If is the greatest common divisor of and , then divides , which in turn divides , so divides ; but divides , so it also divides .
Then is simultaneously a divisor of and of , and hence , since by hypothesis.
We now note that divides by hypothesis, so also divides the sum ; similarly we obtain that and also divide .
Since are pairwise coprime, the fact that each of them divides the sum implies that the product also divides .
All divisors of a natural number are less than or equal to the number itself, so a necessary condition for this to happen is that .
Using the hypothesis we obtain the inequality
we therefore need to consider (since are positive integers) the following three cases:
- . Then is a divisor of , and we find the first two candidate solution triples: and . Both satisfy all the conditions imposed by the problem, and are thus indeed solutions.
- . Then is a divisor of greater than or equal to , so necessarily and we find the last candidate solution triple . Indeed 1 is a divisor of , 2 is a divisor of and 3 is a divisor of , so the triple is a solution.
- . Then is a divisor of greater than or equal to , so necessarily ; but we would also need to be a divisor of , that is, 3 a divisor of , which is false. Hence the triple is not a solution.
By hypothesis is a multiple of , and is less than or equal to (since ). We thus distinguish the cases and .
- In the first case , so in order to have equality we must have . By hypothesis have greatest common divisor 1, so the only possibility is .
- In the second case, substituting with in the hypothesis we obtain that divides and that divides .
The first divisibility implies that for some integer , and since we know that . Moreover, since divides , it also divides . This means that the quantity
is an integer, so divides 4. We know that , so is a non-negative divisor of 4, and hence is necessarily one of .
These possibilities correspond to , that is, to , , and , , .
The first possibility is excluded by the hypothesis that be greater than or equal to , while in the other two cases we find the solution triples and .
From the hypothesis that the greatest common divisor of be exactly 1 it follows that we must take , so the only solution triples of this form are and .