Example 1 Let be a given positive integer, prove that the equation
has at most finitely many positive integer solutions .
Example 1 Let be a given positive integer, prove that the equation
has at most finitely many positive integer solutions .
Prove that we can assume . The conclusion is equivalent to proving that the equation
has at most finitely many positive integer solutions .
First, note that for a given , equation (1) clearly has at most finitely many solutions . We will prove that when is sufficiently large, equation (1) has no solutions, which will prove the above conclusion.
Choose a prime . We can assume (1) has a solution (otherwise, there is nothing to prove), and let , then
where is a (positive) constant that depends only on .
Let the order of modulo be and , then by Example 5 of Unit 8, when , the order of modulo is . Since and are fixed numbers, and are also fixed numbers. If (1) has solutions for sufficiently large , then by (2) we know . From (1) we get
hence by the property of the order, we have ; in particular, . Therefore,
But when is sufficiently large, it is easy to see that the right-hand side of the above inequality . Hence by (3) we get , and thus , so when is sufficiently large, (1) has no positive integer solutions . This completes the proof.