Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 6.6 National olympiad Prove it

Show that there are infinitely many tuples (a,b,c,d)(a,b,c,d) of natural numbers such that a3+b4+c5=d7a^3 + b^4 + c^5 = d^7.

Solution

1. Generalization: We need to show that there are infinitely many tuples (a1,a2,,an)(a_1, a_2, \ldots, a_n) and (b1,b2,,bm)(b_1, b_2, \ldots, b_m) of natural numbers such that
i=1naipi=j=1mbjqj \sum_{i=1}^n a_i^{p_i} = \sum_{j=1}^m b_j^{q_j}
where pi,qj,n,mp_i, q_j, n, m are natural numbers and fixed, and gcd(lcm(p1,p2,,pn),gcd(lcm(q1,q2,,qm)))=1\gcd(\text{lcm}(p_1, p_2, \ldots, p_n), \text{gcd}(\text{lcm}(q_1, q_2, \ldots, q_m))) = 1.

2. Lemma: We first show that there are infinitely many tuples (x1,x2,,xn)(x_1, x_2, \ldots, x_n) of natural numbers such that
x1t1+x2t2++xn1tn1=xnm x_1^{t_1} + x_2^{t_2} + \cdots + x_{n-1}^{t_{n-1}} = x_n^m
where m,n,tm, n, t are natural numbers and fixed, and gcd(m,lcm(t1,,tn1))=1\gcd(m, \text{lcm}(t_1, \ldots, t_{n-1})) = 1.

3. Proof of Lemma:
- Consider the sequence of natural numbers {bn}\{b_n\}.
- Set
ai=bi(i=1nbipi)Mkpi a_i = b_i \left(\sum_{i=1}^n b_i^{p_i}\right)^{\frac{Mk}{p_i}}
where M=lcm(p1,p2,,pn)M = \text{lcm}(p_1, p_2, \ldots, p_n) and kk is an integer such that mMk+1m \mid Mk + 1 (according to Bezout’s theorem).

4. Back to the main problem:
- Case 1: min(m,n)=1\min(m, n) = 1. This is equivalent to the lemma.
- Case 2: min(m,n)>1\min(m, n) > 1. According to the lemma, the following equations have infinitely many solutions in natural numbers:
i=1n1aipi=j=11bjqj \sum_{i=1}^{n-1} a_i^{p_i} = \sum_{j=1}^1 b_j^{q_j}
i=nnaipi=j=2mbjqj \sum_{i=n}^{n} a_i^{p_i} = \sum_{j=2}^m b_j^{q_j}
Combining these, we conclude that the equation
i=1naipi=j=1mbjqj \sum_{i=1}^n a_i^{p_i} = \sum_{j=1}^m b_j^{q_j}
has infinitely many solutions in natural numbers.

5. Conclusion: By the lemma and the cases considered, we have shown that there are infinitely many tuples (a,b,c,d)(a, b, c, d) of natural numbers such that a3+b4+c5=d7a^3 + b^4 + c^5 = d^7.

\blacksquare

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Source: NuminaMath-1.5, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.