Problem:
If is a natural number such that and are perfect squares, prove that can't be a prime number.
Solution
Solution:
Suppose that is a prime number. Let and be natural numbers such that and . Then
Since is a prime number and and are natural numbers, we must have , implying that .
Since , we have that
Thus,
and the solutions are or . Since for a natural number , neither of these would work and we have a contradiction.
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