Let be a given integer. Prove that there exist infinitely many prime numbers such that
for some integers and .
, 2011
Solution
Let be an arbitrary integer. Note that
and
It follows that for every the number is a common divisor of the numbers and with and . So it is enough to prove that there are infinitely many primes such that for some integer .
Suppose that there are only finitely many such primes and these are . If we take , then it is clear that the number is not divisible by any for and that it is also greater than 1. It follows that it has a prime divisor , which is different from every for . We have obtained a contradiction, which finishes the proof.
Looking for a route rather than an archive? The track puts 2,000
problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.