Maths Olympiad Prep

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, 2016

Number theory Difficulty 4.7 AIME Prove it Slovenia

Find all relatively prime integers xx and yy that solve the equation
4x3+y3=3xy2. 4x^3 + y^3 = 3xy^2.

Solution

Adding 3y33y^3 to the equation and factoring both sides we obtain 4(x+y)(x2xy+y2)=3y2(x+y)4(x + y)(x^2 - xy + y^2) = 3y^2(x + y). Moving all terms to the left side we can bring out (x+y)(x + y), so (x+y)(4x24xy+y2)=0(x + y)(4x^2 - 4xy + y^2) = 0. By factoring the second expression we get (x+y)(2xy)2=0(x + y)(2x - y)^2 = 0. So, y=xy = -x or y=2xy = 2x. Since xx and yy are relatively prime, we conclude that xx can only be 11 or 1-1. From this we get four pairs (x,y)(x, y) of relatively prime solutions to the equation, namely (1,1)(1, -1), (1,1)(-1, 1), (1,2)(1, 2) and (1,2)(-1, -2).

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