Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /8 of 69

Number theory Difficulty 5.1 AIME, harder Prove it Mongolia

Find all integers a,ba, b such that aba \le b and (a+b)2=a3+b3(a+b)^2 = a^3 + b^3.

Solution

Answer: (a,b)=(0,1)(a, b) = (0, 1), (1,2)(1, 2), (2,2)(2, 2) and (n,n)(-n, n) for any integer n0n \ge 0.
If a+b=0a+b=0 then (a,b)=(n,n)(a,b) = (-n,n) for an integer n0n \ge 0, so now assume that a+b0a+b \ne 0. Then a+b=a2ab+b2a+b = a^2-ab+b^2 and hence (ab)2+(a1)2+(b1)2=2(a-b)^2 + (a-1)^2 + (b-1)^2 = 2. By setting x=a1,y=b1x = a-1, y = b-1 we get xyx \le y and x2+y2+(xy)2=2x^2+y^2+(x-y)^2 = 2. Clearly, (x,y)=(±1,±1)(x,y) = (\pm1, \pm1), (0,1),(1,0)(0,1), (-1,0), and therefore (a,b)=(0,1),(1,2),(2,2)(a,b) = (0,1), (1,2), (2,2).

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 and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.