29. Does there exist a positive integer such that the indeterminate equation
has infinitely many positive integer solutions ?
29. Does there exist a positive integer such that the indeterminate equation
has infinitely many positive integer solutions ?
29. There exists a positive integer . For example, when , the indeterminate equation
has infinitely many positive integer solutions.
After simplifying and rearranging equation (8), we get
Notice that, is a solution to (9). Suppose is a solution to (9) satisfying , and consider (9) as a quadratic equation in . Then is also a positive real solution to (9), where is obtained by Vieta's formulas, and . Since (9) is symmetric in , is a positive real solution to (9) satisfying . If we can prove that every term of the sequence defined below is a positive integer, then using the above derivation, we can find infinitely many positive integer solutions to (9). Thus, when , (8) has infinitely many positive integer solutions.
The sequence is defined as follows: .
To prove that every term of is a positive integer, we can use mathematical induction to prove that the following conclusions hold simultaneously:
(1) For any , ;
(2) ;
(3) .
The specific derivation process is left to the reader.