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Number theory Difficulty 5.7 AIME, harder Prove it Estonia

Find all quadruples (w,x,y,z)(w, x, y, z) of positive integers such that wx+wy=wzw^x + w^y = w^z.

Solutions — 2

Solution 1

Consider the following cases.
If w=1w = 1, then no solution can exist, since the l.h.s. of the equality equals 22 while the r.h.s. equals 11.
If w2w \ge 2, then x<zx < z and y<zy < z, i.e., xz1x \le z - 1 and yz1y \le z - 1. Thus wx+wywz1+wz1=2wz1wwz1=wzw^x + w^y \le w^{z-1} + w^{z-1} = 2 \cdot w^{z-1} \le w \cdot w^{z-1} = w^z. To satisfy the equation, equalities must hold in both inequalities and thus x=y=z1x = y = z - 1 and w=2w = 2. This gives the solutions (w,x,y,z)=(2,n,n,n+1)(w, x, y, z) = (2, n, n, n+1), where nn is an arbitrary positive integer.

Solution 2

In the case w=1w = 1 there are no solutions because 1+1=21 + 1 = 2 is not a power of 11. Assume in the rest that w>1w > 1. W.l.o.g., assume xy<zx \le y < z. Then the equation takes the form wx(1+wyx)=wzw^x(1 + w^{y-x}) = w^z, whence 1+wyx=wzx1 + w^{y-x} = w^{z-x}. Consequently, 1+wyx1 + w^{y-x} is a positive power of ww and is divisible by ww. If yxy-x were positive, then wyxw^{y-x} would also be divisible by ww, whence 11 should be divisible by ww, which is impossible. The remaining case yx=0y-x = 0 leads to 2=wzx2 = w^{z-x} that gives w=2w = 2 and zx=1z-x = 1 as the only possibility. Hence the solutions of the equation are of the form (w,x,y,z)=(2,n,n,n+1)(w, x, y, z) = (2, n, n, n+1), where nn is any positive integer. Checking shows that all these quadruples satisfy the equation.

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