Find all pairs of positive integers satisfying
Solution
The answer is and , where .
1. If , then the original equation is equivalent to , so .
2. If , let , then the original equation can be rewritten as
Cubing both sides and simplifying, we have
To complete the square on the left side, we multiply both sides by and add to both sides, obtaining
Clearly is impossible. When , since must be a perfect square, we must have , hence
where (since ). Substituting back into the original equation, we get
Thus clearly .
Substituting back gives the solution.
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