Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 5.8 AIME, harder Prove it Mongolia

Find all positive integer solutions to the equation
2a+2b+2c+2d=60min{a,b,c,d}, 2^a + 2^b + 2^c + 2^d = 60 \cdot \min\{a, b, c, d\},
where min{a,b,c,d}\min\{a, b, c, d\} denotes the minimum of the numbers a,b,c,da, b, c, d.

Solution

Answer: {a,b,c,d}={4,5,6,7}\{a, b, c, d\} = \{4, 5, 6, 7\}.
It is clear that the above is a solution, so we prove that there are no other solutions.
We may assume abcda \le b \le c \le d. Since S=2a+2b+2c+2d=154aS = 2^a + 2^b + 2^c + 2^d = 15 \cdot 4a, we have 2a4a2^a \mid 4a, thus 2a4a2^a \le 4a and therefore a4a \le 4.

First, we prove that if S0(mod15)S \equiv 0 \pmod{15}, then a,b,c,da, b, c, d must have distinct remainders modulo 44. Since 241(mod15)2^4 \equiv 1 \pmod{15}, we may order the remainders as 0pqrs30 \le p \le q \le r \le s \le 3 and furthermore we may assume that p=0p = 0. Then we have s=3s = 3, since 20+322<152^0 + 3 \cdot 2^2 < 15. Similarly, r=2r = 2, since 20+221+23<152^0 + 2 \cdot 2^1 + 2^3 < 15. Finally, it is clear q=1q = 1.

It follows that v2(S)=a=2+v2(a)v_2(S) = a = 2 + v_2(a), hence a1,2,3a \ne 1, 2, 3. For a=4a = 4, we have b5b \ge 5, c6c \ge 6, d7d \ge 7, thus S240S \ge 240. Equality means there is no other solution.

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