Four positive integers , and satisfy the relations Is it possible that both and are perfect squares? (Russia)
Solution
Assuming indirectly that and with . Suppose that the number is odd. Then and have opposite parity, as well as and . This means that both and are even, as well as ; a contradiction. Thus, is even, so the number is a positive integer. Next, we set . Now the problem conditions yield
and
(the last equality in (2) follows from (1)). We readily get from (2) that . In the sequel we will use only the relations (1) and (2), along with the fact that are positive integers, while and are nonnegative integers, at most one of which may be zero. Since both relations are symmetric with respect to the simultaneous swappings and , we assume, without loss of generality, that (and hence ). Therefore, , whence
On the other hand, since is even by (2), the numbers and have the same parity, so imply , which is impossible.