Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 5.1 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:
Let p=2240365831p=2^{24036583}-1, the largest prime currently known. For how many positive integers cc do the quadratics ±x2±px±c\pm x^{2} \pm p x \pm c all have rational roots?

Solution

Solution: 0
This is equivalent to both discriminants p2±4cp^{2} \pm 4 c being squares. In other words, p2p^{2} must be the average of two squares a2a^{2} and b2b^{2}. Note that aa and bb must have the same parity, and that (a+b2)2+(ab2)2=a2+b22=p2\left(\frac{a+b}{2}\right)^{2}+\left(\frac{a-b}{2}\right)^{2}=\frac{a^{2}+b^{2}}{2}=p^{2}. Therefore, pp must be the hypotenuse in a Pythagorean triple. Such triples are parametrized by k(m2n2,2mn,m2+n2)k\left(m^{2}-n^{2}, 2 m n, m^{2}+n^{2}\right). But p3(mod4)p \equiv 3(\bmod 4) and is therefore not the sum of two squares. This implies that pp is not the hypotenuse of any Pythagorean triple, so the answer is 0 .

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