Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 5.8 AIME, harder Prove it Saudi Arabia

Determine all pairs (m,n)(m, n) of non-negative integers such that
2n!=m!(m!+2). 2n! = m!(m! + 2).

Solution

The answer is (3,4)(3, 4).

For m=0,1m = 0, 1 or 22, we obtain the impossible 2n!=32n! = 3 and 2n!=82n! = 8. However, m=3m = 3 works with n=4n = 4.

Now let m4m \ge 4. Clearly, 2n!>2m!2n! > 2m!, which implies n>mn > m, so we can write n=m+an = m + a for some positive integer aa. The equation transforms into
2(m+1)(m+2)(m+a)=m!+2, 2(m + 1)(m + 2)(m + a) = m! + 2,
and further simplifies to
(m+1)(m+2)(m+a)=m!2+1. (m+1)(m+2)(m+a) = \frac{m!}{2} + 1.
For m4m \ge 4, the right-hand side is odd, but for a2a \ge 2, the left-hand side is even.
Therefore, we have no solutions for m4m \ge 4 and a2a \ge 2.

Finally, if n=m+1n = m+1, then we have 2(m+1)=m!+22(m+1) = m!+2, which simplifies to (m1)!=2(m-1)! = 2.
This is impossible for m4m \ge 4.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.