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Number theory Difficulty 5.6 AIME, harder Prove it Saudi Arabia

Let 1919 integer numbers are given. Let Hamza writes on the paper the greatest common divisor for each pair of numbers. It occurs that the difference between the biggest and smallest numbers written on the paper is less than 180180. Prove that not all numbers on the paper are different.

Solution

Let a1,a2,,a19a_{1}, a_{2}, \ldots, a_{19} be the given numbers and suppose on the contrary that the set SS of all (192)=171\binom{19}{2} = 171 numbers, which are written on the paper, are all different,
d1<d2<<d171 d_{1} < d_{2} < \ldots < d_{171}
Denote kk as the number of even values among the 1919 given numbers, and tt as the number of even values in SS. It is easy to see that for any dSd \in S, there exist ax,aya_{x}, a_{y} such that d=gcd(ax,ay)d = \operatorname{gcd}(a_{x}, a_{y}); and this number dd is even if and only if ax,aya_{x}, a_{y} are both even. Hence, we have t=(k2)t = \binom{k}{2}.

Then the number of odd values in SS is 171t171 - t. Since d171d1<180d_{171} - d_{1} < 180 then the number of even values and odd values in SS does not exceed 9090, which implies that
{t90171t90 so 81(k2)90. \left\{ \begin{array}{l} t \leq 90 \\ 171 - t \leq 90 \end{array} \text{ so } 81 \leq \binom{k}{2} \leq 90 .\right.
Note that
(132)=78<91=(142) \binom{13}{2} = 78 < 91 = \binom{14}{2}
so there does not exist positive integer kk such that 81(k2)9081 \leq \binom{k}{2} \leq 90, contradiction. Hence, the numbers written on the paper cannot be all different.

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