Is it possible to partition all natural numbers into 6 pairwise disjoint subsets , such that for any positive integers satisfying , they never all fall into the same ?
Solution
Yes, it is possible.
Let be the set of all positive integers of the form , where are non-negative integers, . We now show that satisfy the conditions of the problem.
Now suppose and ; write respectively as
and let .
Dividing both sides of the equation by , and then reducing modulo 7, we obtain the congruence
where equal 0 or 1. But equation (1) only has the solution , which is a contradiction. Therefore, positive integer solutions of can never all fall into the same .
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.