Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /50 of 158

Number theory Difficulty 5.4 AIME, harder Prove it Estonia

Find all triples (a,b,c)(a, b, c) of positive integers such that
abc+bca+cab=3abc. a^{bc} + b^{ca} + c^{ab} = 3abc.

Solution

First assume a2a \ge 2, b2b \ge 2, c2c \ge 2. W.l.o.g., let cc be the greatest among the three numbers. Then abc+bca+caba4+b4+c4>b4+c42b2c2=2bcbc>3abca^{bc} + b^{ca} + c^{ab} \ge a^4 + b^4 + c^4 > b^4 + c^4 \ge 2b^2c^2 = 2b \cdot c \cdot bc > 3 \cdot a \cdot bc. Thus there are no solutions in this case.

It remains to study triples that contain 11. W.l.o.g., let a=1a=1. The equation reduces to 1+bc+cb=3bc1+b^c+c^b=3bc. Assume b3b \ge 3, c3c \ge 3. W.l.o.g., cbc \ge b, leading to 1+bc+cb1+b3+c3>c33bc1+b^c+c^b \ge 1+b^3+c^3 > c^3 \ge 3 \cdot b \cdot c. Thus there are no solutions in this case either. Now assume b2b \ge 2, c2c \ge 2 and one of the numbers is 22. W.l.o.g. let b=2b=2. The equation reduces to 1+2c+c2=6c1+2^c+c^2=6c which can be interpreted as a quadratic equation w.r.t. cc that leads to c=3±9(2c+1)c = 3 \pm \sqrt{9-(2^c+1)}. Hence 82c8-2^c is a perfect square. The only candidates for this are 44 and 00 that give c=2c=2 and c=3c=3, respectively, but c=2c=2 leads to contradiction (the above formula would give c=1c=1 or c=5c=5). The case c=3c=3 gives the solution (1,2,3)(1,2,3) of the original equation. By symmetry, also (1,3,2)(1,3,2), (2,1,3)(2,1,3), (2,3,1)(2,3,1), (3,1,2)(3,1,2), (3,2,1)(3,2,1) are solutions. If one of the numbers bb and cc is 11 then, w.l.o.g., b=1b=1. The equation reduces to 1+1+c=3c1+1+c=3c, whence c=1c=1. This gives the trivial solution (1,1,1)(1,1,1).

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.