Olympiad Maths Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 5.6 AIME, harder Prove it Ukraine

Find all pairs of positive integers (m,n)(m, n) that satisfy the equation
m!+n!=mn+1. m! + n! = m^n + 1.

Solution

Answer: (1,1)(1, 1), (2,1)(2, 1), (5,3)(5, 3).

By checking trivial cases m=1m = 1, n=1n = 1 and n=2n = 2, we find the first two of the solutions listed. From now on, we assume m2m \ge 2 and n3n \ge 3.

Step 1. We prove that m>nm > n.
Suppose nmn \ge m. Then, numbers m!m!, n!n! and mnm^n are divisible by mm, hence, mm also divides m!+n!mn=1m! + n! - m^n = 1 – contradiction. In particular, it follows that m4m \ge 4.

Step 2. Now, we show that n>12mn > \frac{1}{2}m.
From well-known inequality m!>m12mm! > m^{\frac{1}{2}m}, which follows from the Root-Mean Square-Arithmetic-Mean-Geometric-Mean-Harmonic-Mean Inequality, we obtain mn+1=m!+n!>m12n+1m^n + 1 = m! + n! > m^{\frac{1}{2}n} + 1.

Step 3. We prove that mm is prime.
Otherwise, mm has a prime factor pp not larger than 12m\frac{1}{2}m and nn. In that case, pp is a factor of m!+n!mn=1m! + n! - m^n = 1 – contradiction.

Step 4. We prove that m1m-1 is either prime or a square of a prime. Suppose the contrary. Then, m1m-1 can be represented as a product of two factors aba \ne b, both smaller than 12m\frac{1}{2}m and nn. Therefore, m!m! and n!n! are divisible by n1=abn-1 = ab, since n!n! contains both these factors. mn+1=((m1)+1)n+1m^n + 1 = ((m-1) + 1)^n + 1 gives a remainder of 2 when divided by m1m-1. Hence, m1m-1 is a factor of 2, which is impossible, since m4m \ge 4.

From the results of Steps 3 and 4 and from parity, we get that the only possible case is m=5m = 5. Indeed, since m4m \ge 4 is prime, it is odd, hence, m1m-1 is even and can be a square of a prime, if that prime is 2. From the results of Steps 1 and 2, we get that possible solutions are only (5,3)(5, 3) and (5,4)(5, 4). By checking, we see that only the first pair satisfies the initial equation.

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