Determine all pairs of positive integers for which
Solution
Suppose the quotient of and is not equal to 1. Then it is at least 2, so we have
or equivalently,
or equivalently,
From this, it immediately follows that , so . Then we have , so also . The pair is indeed a solution, as .
The other possibility is that the quotient is exactly 1. Then we have
or equivalently,
or equivalently,
The left side can be factored as . So we have , or equivalently, . From the previous calculations, it follows directly that is indeed a solution for all positive integers .
We conclude that the solutions are: and for .
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