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Number theory Difficulty 3.9 AMC 10/12 Prove it Turkey

Find all triples (a,b,c)(a, b, c) of positive integers such that 3a+3b+3c3^a + 3^b + 3^c is a perfect square.

Solution

Let 3a+3b+3c=m23^a + 3^b + 3^c = m^2. Since mm is odd we have m21(mod8)m^2 \equiv 1 \pmod{8}. For each positive integer kk we have 3k13^k \equiv 1 or 3k3(mod8)3^k \equiv 3 \pmod{8}. Therefore, 3a3b3c1(mod8)3^a \equiv 3^b \equiv 3^c \equiv 1 \pmod{8} and we get that aa, bb and cc are odd numbers. Let abca \leq b \leq c. Then 3a(3ba+3ca+1)=m23^a (3^{b-a} + 3^{c-a} + 1) = m^2. Now since aa is odd, we get that 3ba+3ca+10(mod3)3^{b-a} + 3^{c-a} + 1 \equiv 0 \pmod{3}. Thus, a=b=ca = b = c and we get all solutions: (a,b,c)=(2k1,2k1,2k1)(a, b, c) = (2k-1, 2k-1, 2k-1), where kk is a positive integer.

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