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Combinatorics Difficulty 5.0 AIME Prove it Soviet Union

Problem:

Show that there are infinitely many positive integers nn such that [a3/2]+[b3/2]=n[a^{3/2}] + [b^{3/2}] = n has at least 19801980 integer solutions.

Solution

Solution:

Consider all a,ba, b in the range 1,2,3,,N21, 2, 3, \ldots, N^{2}. There are N4N^{4} possible pairs of values. But [a3/2][a^{3/2}] and [b3/2][b^{3/2}] are in the range 1,2,,N31, 2, \ldots, N^{3}, so their sum is in the range 1,2,,2N31, 2, \ldots, 2N^{3}. Hence one of these values has at least N/2N/2 solutions. By taking NN sufficiently large we can get a1>1980a_{1} > 1980 solutions for some N12N3N_{1} \leq 2N^{3}. But now by taking NN sufficiently large we can get a2>a1a_{2} > a_{1} solutions for some N2N_{2}. Since a2a1a_{2} \neq a_{1}, we must have N2N1N_{2} \neq N_{1}. In other words, we have a different nn, also with >1980>1980 solutions. Continuing, we get an infinite sequence of distinct nn each with at least 19801980 solutions.

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