Find all quadruples of positive integers such that .
Solutions — 2
Solution 1
Consider the following cases.
If , then no solution can exist, since the l.h.s. of the equality equals while the r.h.s. equals .
If , then and , i.e., and . Thus . To satisfy the equation, equalities must hold in both inequalities and thus and . This gives the solutions , where is an arbitrary positive integer.
Solution 2
In the case there are no solutions because is not a power of . Assume in the rest that . W.l.o.g., assume . Then the equation takes the form , whence . Consequently, is a positive power of and is divisible by . If were positive, then would also be divisible by , whence should be divisible by , which is impossible. The remaining case leads to that gives and as the only possibility. Hence the solutions of the equation are of the form , where is any positive integer. Checking shows that all these quadruples satisfy the equation.