Find all natural numbers that satisfy the equation: .
Solution
Let's consider two cases for .
For odd , we have
which has no solutions.
Let . Then
Suppose that one of the two prime numbers or divides each of the two factors on the right-hand side. Then this prime also divides the number and hence . However, this contradicts the equation , in which the right-hand side is divisible by the corresponding prime number, while the left-hand side is not. Therefore, these factors are coprime. Hence, we have the following two cases.
Case 1. , , which contradicts the fact that .
Case 2. , and . For , we find that and , which satisfies the equation. For , the expression is only possible for even . If , then . But under these conditions, and it is greater than , so it cannot be a power of .
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