Olympiad Maths Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 5.5 AIME, harder Prove it Belarus

a) Find at least one positive integer nn, which can be represented both as n=a2bn = a^2 - b and n=c2dn = c^2 - d, where a,b,c,da, b, c, d are divisors of nn and aca \neq c.
b) Prove that there exist infinitely many positive integers nn satisfying a).

Solution

a) n=72n = 72 or n=88200n = 88200.

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