Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 4.8 AIME Prove it JBMO

Problem:
Find all ordered triples (x,y,z)(x, y, z) of integers satisfying 20x+13y=2013z20^{x} + 13^{y} = 2013^{z}.

Solution

Solution:
As 2013=2251320 \cdot 13 = 2^{2} \cdot 5 \cdot 13 and 2013=311612013 = 3 \cdot 11 \cdot 61 are relatively prime, xx, yy and zz must be nonnegative.

Considering the equation modulo 33, we observe that xx must be odd. Now considering the equation modulo 77, we obtain (1)+(1)y4z(mod7)(-1) + (-1)^{y} \equiv 4^{z} \pmod{7}, which is impossible as the right hand side can only be 11, 22 and 44 modulo 77.

There are no solutions.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.