Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /11 of 69

, 2011

Number theory Difficulty 4.6 AIME Prove it South Africa

Let aa be a positive integer and a>1a > 1. Prove that, for every positive integer nn, the number
n(2n+1)(3n+1)(an+1) n(2n + 1)(3n + 1)\dots(an + 1)
is divisible by all prime numbers smaller than aa.

Solution

Let p<ap < a be a prime. If pnp \nmid n, the claim holds.
Suppose then that nn is not divisible by pp. Then the numbers 2n+1,3n+1,,(p+1)n+12n + 1, 3n + 1, \dots, (p+1)n + 1 give different remainders when divided by pp, which are denoted, respectively, by r1,r2,,rpr_1, r_2, \dots, r_p. Indeed, if ri=rjr_i = r_j, then
p((i+1)n+1)((j+1)n+1)=(ij)n, p|((i+1)n + 1) - ((j+1)n + 1) = (i-j)n,
which implies that i=ji = j. So each of the pp possible remainders appears exactly once. In particular, one of these remainders must be zero, meaning that the one of the factors in the product is divisible by pp, which finishes the problem.

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

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