Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 5.4 AIME, harder Prove it Romania

Determine all pairs (a,b)(a, b) of integers which satisfy the equality
a+2b+1+a+1b+2=1+6a+b+1. \frac{a+2}{b+1} + \frac{a+1}{b+2} = 1 + \frac{6}{a+b+1}.

Solution

Obviously, b2b \ne -2 and b1b \ne -1. Adding 22 to both sides of the equality, we get
(a+2b+1+1)+(a+1b+2+1)=3+6a+b+1, \left(\frac{a+2}{b+1} + 1\right) + \left(\frac{a+1}{b+2} + 1\right) = 3 + \frac{6}{a+b+1},
hence
(a+b+3)(1b+1+1b+2)=3(a+b+3)a+b+1. (a+b+3)\left(\frac{1}{b+1} + \frac{1}{b+2}\right) = \frac{3(a+b+3)}{a+b+1}.

Case 1. If a+b+3=0a + b + 3 = 0, then every pair (a,b)=(3u,u)(a, b) = (-3-u, u), where uZ{2,1}u \in \mathbb{Z} \setminus \{-2, -1\}, is a solution.

Case 2. If a+b+30a + b + 3 \neq 0, then
1b+1+1b+2=3a+b+1, \frac{1}{b+1} + \frac{1}{b+2} = \frac{3}{a+b+1},
which leads to
a=b2+4b+32b+3. a = \frac{b^2 + 4b + 3}{2b + 3}.
Since aZa \in \mathbb{Z}, it results that 2b+3b2+4b+32b+3 \mid b^2+4b+3. It follows that 2b+332b+3 \mid 3, so b{3,2,1,0}b \in \{-3, -2, -1, 0\}. We get one additional solution, namely (a,b)=(1,0)(a,b) = (1,0).

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