Find all pairs of positive integers satisfying the following conditions:
(i) divides ,
(ii) divides ,
(iii) .
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Solution
The only solutions are , , and , which clearly work. Now we show there are no others.
Obviously, , so the problem conditions imply
since each of and divide the right-hand side. We define
Claim (Size estimate) — We must have .
Proof. Let , so that . We have that
which shows .
Claim (Orders argument) — In fact, .
Proof. First of all, note that cannot be even: if it was, then have opposite parity, but then , contradiction.
Thus is odd. However, every odd prime divisor of is congruent to and is thus at least , so or . It follows that .
At this point, we have reduced to solving
and we need to prove the claimed solutions are the only ones. Write , and assume WLOG that : then we have , or
The discriminant must be a perfect square.
* The cases and lead to pairs and .
* If , then we can sandwich
so the discriminant is not a square.
The solution is complete.