Consider a polynomial , where are 9 distinct positive integers. Prove that there exists a positive integer such that for all integers , can be divided by a prime greater than 20.
Solution
First observe that for each index ,
is a positive number. Let . We will show below that satisfies the requirement of the problem.
Suppose there exists an integer such that all prime factors of are less than 20. For all , consider the reduced fraction of , denoted as . Note that , and since , , so there must exist a prime less than 20 such that . Moreover, since there are only 8 primes less than 20, by the pigeonhole principle there exist such that . Hence there exist positive integers , and positive integers coprime to , such that and . Without loss of generality, assume .
But at the same time, note that and , so , hence
but is coprime to , a contradiction! Therefore satisfies the requirement of the problem.
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.