Prove that for any given positive integer , there exist infinitely many positive integers , such that the numbers
are all composite.
Solution
For any given positive integer , choose positive integer sufficiently large such that . Consider the following integers:
all of which are larger than . From each of these integers, pick a prime factor: , and let
where is an arbitrary positive integer. For any fixed integer (), one has . In fact, if , then the result is obvious. Assuming that , it follows from Fermat's little theorem that
Similarly, one has . Observe that
Hence, is a composite number.
Therefore, is one of the positive integers such that
are all composite. As is arbitrarily chosen, there are infinitely many such positive integers satisfying the conditions above.
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