Problem:
Solve the equation
in the set of integers.
Problem:
Solve the equation
in the set of integers.
Solution:
For or the only solution is the trivial one . From now on let . Since , both sides of the equation are divisible by . Suppose that is even. Then , which upon raising to the -th power gives by Fermat's little theorem, which is impossible. Therefore, must be odd.
It is clear that is even. Let us write for odd . We have
Since because is odd, the highest power of two dividing the left-hand side is or , while the highest power of two dividing the right-hand side equals , whence or . We shall show that in neither of these two cases does the given equation have solutions.
i. ; hence, . Dividing by gives which is impossible because the left-hand side is of the form (since ), while the right-hand side is of the form ().
ii. ; again . Dividing by gives . The right-hand side is of the form , so for we have and which is impossible, while for we have since , again impossible.
Solution:
For even the left-hand side of the equation is of the form , and for odd the left-hand side is of the form . However, since and are quadratic non-residues modulo , neither nor can be divisible by if . Therefore, the given equation has no integer solutions for .