Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 5.5 AIME, harder Prove it Italy

Problem:

How many are the ordered pairs (x,y)(x, y) of positive integers less than or equal to 20192019 such that x+yx+y and xy+1x y+1 are powers of 22?

Solution

Solution:

The answer is 3737. Suppose x=yx = y. Then we get x2+1x^2 + 1 even, hence xx odd. But 2x2x with xx odd is a power of two if and only if x=1x = 1.

Now we just need to count all the pairs (x,y)(x, y) that satisfy the hypotheses with x<yx < y. This means that there exist two positive integers aa and bb such that x+y=2ax + y = 2^a and xy+1=2bx y + 1 = 2^b. Since (x1)(y1)0(x-1)(y-1) \geq 0, we have bab \geq a.

From the second equation we deduce that both numbers are odd, so there exists an odd kk such that x=2a1kx = 2^{a-1} - k and y=2a1+ky = 2^{a-1} + k. Substituting into the second equation we obtain 22a2k2+1=2b2^{2a-2} - k^2 + 1 = 2^b. Since k=2m+1k = 2m + 1 we have 4m(m+1)=22a22b=2b(22a2b1)4m(m+1) = 2^{2a-2} - 2^b = 2^b (2^{2a-2-b} - 1) which implies m(m+1)=2b2(22a2b1)m(m+1) = 2^{b-2}(2^{2a-2-b} - 1).

At this point if m=0m = 0 we get that the pairs of the form (2a11,2a1+1)(2^{a-1} - 1, 2^{a-1} + 1), together with their symmetric counterparts, satisfy the requirements. They number 210=202 \cdot 10 = 20, because the exponents aa between 22 and 1111 work.

Alternatively we have m1m \geq 1. The factors mm and m+1m+1 are coprime, so one of the two is divisible by 2b22^{b-2}. In both cases we have that m2b21m \geq 2^{b-2} - 1. But then 2b2(22a2b1)=m(m+1)2b2(2b21)2^{b-2}(2^{2a-2-b} - 1) = m(m+1) \geq 2^{b-2}(2^{b-2} - 1) and thus 2a2bb22a-2-b \geq b-2 which implies aba \geq b. But we had already observed that bab \geq a, hence a=ba = b, that is (x1)(y1)=0(x-1)(y-1) = 0 and so the pairs are of the type (1,2a1)(1, 2^a - 1), together with their symmetric counterparts. They are 2101=192 \cdot 10 - 1 = 19, since the exponents aa between 11 and 1010 work, but we must count (1,1)(1, 1) only once, hence the 1-1.

However we must be careful that we have counted some solutions both in this family and in the previous one, namely (1,3)(1, 3) and (3,1)(3, 1). The total number of pairs satisfying the requirements is therefore 20+192=3720 + 19 - 2 = 37.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement translated into English from it; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.