Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 5.8 AIME, harder Prove it South Africa

Determine all pairs (m,n)(m, n) of non-negative integers that satisfy the equation
20m10m2+1=19n. 20^m - 10m^2 + 1 = 19^n.

Solution

Let the pair (m,n)(m, n) satisfy the equation. m=0m = 0 implies that 2=19n2 = 19^n, an impossibility. So we must have m>0m > 0. Taking both sides modulo 1010 gives 1(1)n(mod10)1 \equiv (-1)^n \pmod{10}, implying that nn must be even. Taking both sides modulo 2020 gives 10m2+1(1)n(mod20)-10m^2 + 1 \equiv (-1)^n \pmod{20}, so that 2m22 \mid m^2, whence mm is even too. So let us put m=2km = 2k and n=2ln = 2l for a positive integer kk and a non-negative integer ll. The original equation can now be written as
10m21=202k192l=(20k19l)(20k+19l). 10m^2 - 1 = 20^{2k} - 19^{2l} = (20^k - 19^l)(20^k + 19^l).
As both 20k+19l20^k + 19^l and 10m2110m^2 - 1 are positive (recall that m1m \ge 1), we must have that the integer 20k19l120^k - 19^l \ge 1. It follows that
10m21=(20k19l)(20k+19l)20k+19l20k+1, 10m^2 - 1 = (20^k - 19^l)(20^k + 19^l) \ge 20^k + 19^l \ge 20^k + 1,
and we see that 20k10(2k)22=40k2220^k \le 10(2k)^2 - 2 = 40k^2 - 2. This inequality is not true for k=2k = 2, and it can be easily verified by induction that it also fails to hold for any k>2k > 2. The inequality holds for k=1k = 1, and it follows (and is easily checked) that the only pair that solves the original equation, is (m,n)=(2,2)(m, n) = (2, 2).

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