Determine all positive integers and for which is the square of an integer.
Solution
The required integers are and . It is readily checked that these integers satisfy the condition in the statement.
To show that there are no other such, write , where is a positive integer, so .
The latter shows that if , and of the first four positive integers, only yields a positive integer , in which case .
Henceforth, let , and notice that must be even, for otherwise , which is impossible. Let , be the highest power of dividing .
If , then is the highest power of dividing , which is again impossible.
Consequently, , so , and ; that is, , in contradiction with established above. This ends the proof.
Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track
puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.