Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 5.5 AIME, harder Prove it United States

Problem:
Determine the number of triples 0k,m,n1000 \leq k, m, n \leq 100 of integers such that
2mn2nm=2k 2^{m} n - 2^{n} m = 2^{k}

Solution

Solution:
First consider when nmn \geq m, so let n=m+dn = m + d where d0d \geq 0. Then we have
2m(m+d2dm)=2m(m(12d)+d) 2^{m}(m + d - 2^{d} m) = 2^{m}(m(1 - 2^{d}) + d)
which is non-positive unless m=0m = 0. So our first set of solutions is m=0,n=2jm = 0, n = 2^{j}.

Now, we can assume that m>nm > n, so let m=n+dm = n + d where d>0d > 0. Rewrite
2mn2nm=2n+dn2n(n+d)=2n((2d1)nd) 2^{m} n - 2^{n} m = 2^{n + d} n - 2^{n}(n + d) = 2^{n}((2^{d} - 1)n - d)
In order for this to be a power of 22, (2d1)nd(2^{d} - 1)n - d must be a power of 22. This implies that for some jj, 2jd(mod2d1)2^{j} \equiv -d \pmod{2^{d} - 1}. But notice that the powers of 22 modulo 2d12^{d} - 1 are 1,2,4,,2d11, 2, 4, \ldots, 2^{d-1} (since 2d12^{d} \equiv 1 so the cycle repeats).

In order for the residues to match, we need 2j+d=c(2d1)2^{j} + d = c(2^{d} - 1), where 0jd10 \leq j \leq d-1 and c1c \geq 1. In order for this to be true, we must have 2d1+d2d1d+12d12^{d-1} + d \geq 2^{d} - 1 \Longleftrightarrow d + 1 \geq 2^{d-1}. This inequality is only true for d=1,2,3d = 1, 2, 3. We plug each of these into the original expression (2d1)nd(2^{d} - 1)n - d.

For d=1d = 1: n1n - 1 is a power of 22. This yields the set of solutions (2j+2,2j+1)(2^{j} + 2, 2^{j} + 1) for j0j \geq 0.

For d=2d = 2: 3n23n - 2 is a power of 22. Note that powers of 22 are 2(mod3)-2 \pmod{3} if and only if it is an even power, so n=22j+23n = \frac{2^{2j} + 2}{3}. This yields the solution set (22j+83,22j+23)\left(\frac{2^{2j} + 8}{3}, \frac{2^{2j} + 2}{3}\right), j0j \geq 0.

For d=3d = 3: 7n37n - 3 is a power of 22. Powers of 22 have a period of 33 when taken (mod7)\pmod{7}, so inspection tells us 7n3=23j+27n - 3 = 2^{3j + 2}, yielding the solution set (23j+2+247,23j+2+37)\left(\frac{2^{3j + 2} + 24}{7}, \frac{2^{3j + 2} + 3}{7}\right), j0j \geq 0.

Therefore, all the solutions are of the form
(m,n)=(0,2j), (2j+2,2j+1)(22j+83,22j+23), (23j+2+247,23j+2+37) \begin{gathered} (m, n) = (0, 2^{j}),\ (2^{j} + 2, 2^{j} + 1) \\ \left(\frac{2^{2j} + 8}{3}, \frac{2^{2j} + 2}{3}\right),\ \left(\frac{2^{3j + 2} + 24}{7}, \frac{2^{3j + 2} + 3}{7}\right) \end{gathered}
for j0j \geq 0.

Restricting this family to m,n100m, n \leq 100 gives 7+7+5+3=227 + 7 + 5 + 3 = 22.

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