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Algebra Difficulty 5.4 AIME, harder Prove it Saudi Arabia

Find all pairs of positive integers (pp, qq) such that both equations x2px+q=0x^{2} - p x + q = 0 and x2qx+p=0x^{2} - q x + p = 0 have integral solutions.

Solution

Since x2px+q=0x^{2} - p x + q = 0 has integral solution, then we may assume that
{p=a+bq=ab with a,bZ+. \begin{cases} p = a + b \\ q = a b \end{cases} \text{ with } a, b \in \mathbb{Z}^{+} .
Note that qp+1=ab(a+b)+1=(a1)(b1)0q - p + 1 = a b - (a + b) + 1 = (a - 1)(b - 1) \geq 0 then q+1pq + 1 \geq p.
By the same way on the second equation x2qx+p=0x^{2} - q x + p = 0, then we have p+1qp + 1 \geq q. Thus p=qp = q or p+1=qp + 1 = q or q+1=pq + 1 = p. We consider three cases:

1. If p=qp = q then x2px+p=0x^{2} - p x + p = 0 then we have
Δ=p24p=k2(p2)2k2=4. \Delta = p^{2} - 4p = k^{2} \Leftrightarrow (p - 2)^{2} - k^{2} = 4 .
Hence, (p2k)(p2+k)=4(p - 2 - k)(p - 2 + k) = 4. Note that (p2k)+(p2+k)=2(p2)(p - 2 - k) + (p - 2 + k) = 2(p - 2) then these numbers have the same parity, so we just need to consider p2k=p2+k=2p - 2 - k = p - 2 + k = 2 or p=4,k=0p = 4, k = 0. In this case, we have one pair satisfies the given condition (p,q)=(4,4)(p, q) = (4, 4).

2. If p+1=qp + 1 = q then x2px+p+1=0x^{2} - p x + p + 1 = 0, we have
Δ=p24p4=k2(p2)2k2=8. \Delta = p^{2} - 4p - 4 = k^{2} \Leftrightarrow (p - 2)^{2} - k^{2} = 8 .
Hence (p2k)(p2+k)=8(p - 2 - k)(p - 2 + k) = 8. Similarly, these numbers have the same parity then p2k=2p - 2 - k = 2, p2+k=4p - 2 + k = 4 or p=5,k=5p = 5, k = 5. In this case, we have one pair satisfies the given condition (p,q)=(5,6)(p, q) = (5, 6).

3. If q+1=pq + 1 = p, similarly, we have (p,q)=(6,5)(p, q) = (6, 5).

Therefore, (p,q)=(4,4),(5,6),(6,5)(p, q) = (4, 4), (5, 6), (6, 5). \square

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