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Number theory Difficulty 6.7 National olympiad Prove it

The greatest common divisor of two positive integers mm and nn is denoted by ggT(m,n)\operatorname{ggT}(m, n).

Let there be an infinite set SS of positive integers such that there exist four pairwise distinct numbers v,w,x,ySv, w, x, y \in S for which ggT(v,w)ggT(x,y)\operatorname{ggT}(v, w) \neq \operatorname{ggT}(x, y) holds.
Prove that there exist three pairwise distinct numbers a,b,cSa, b, c \in S such that ggT(a,b)=ggT(a,c)ggT(b,c)\operatorname{ggT}(a, b) = \operatorname{ggT}(a, c) \neq \operatorname{ggT}(b, c) holds.

Solution

In the following, we call a three-element subset {s,t,u}S\{s, t, u\} \subset S a balanced triangle if the set {ggT(s,t),ggT(s,u),ggT(t,u)}\{\mathrm{ggT}(s, t), \operatorname{ggT}(s, u), \operatorname{ggT}(t, u)\} has exactly two different elements. It is to be shown that there exists a balanced triangle.

Lemma. For pairwise different numbers a,b,c,dSa, b, c, d \in S, such that ggT(a,b)=ggT(a,c)ggT(a,d)\operatorname{ggT}(a, b)=\operatorname{ggT}(a, c) \neq \operatorname{ggT}(a, d) and ggT(b,d)=ggT(c,d)\operatorname{ggT}(b, d)=\operatorname{ggT}(c, d), the set {a,b,c,d}\{a, b, c, d\} contains a balanced triangle.
Proof. If ggT(a,b)=ggT(b,d)\operatorname{ggT}(a, b)=\operatorname{ggT}(b, d), then {a,b,d}\{a, b, d\} is a balanced triangle. Otherwise, either ggT(a,d)ggT(a,b)\operatorname{ggT}(a, d) \neq \operatorname{ggT}(a, b) or ggT(a,d)ggT(b,d)\operatorname{ggT}(a, d) \neq \operatorname{ggT}(b, d), so {a,b,c}\{a, b, c\} or {b,c,d}\{b, c, d\} is a balanced triangle.
!

For each element aSa \in S, let Sa={ggT(a,s)sS,sa}S_{a}=\{\operatorname{ggT}(a, s) \mid s \in S, s \neq a\}. Since this set contains only divisors of aa, it is finite. From the assumption, we can choose aSa \in S such that SaS_{a} has at least two elements, otherwise ggT(v,w)=ggT(w,x)=ggT(x,y)\operatorname{ggT}(v, w)=\operatorname{ggT}(w, x)=\operatorname{ggT}(x, y) would hold.

By the pigeonhole principle, we find an infinite subset TST \subset S such that ggT(a,t)\operatorname{ggT}(a, t) is the same value gg for all tTt \in T. Now we choose a dS\(T{a})d \in S \backslash(T \cup\{a\}) such that ggT(a,d)g\operatorname{ggT}(a, d) \neq g, which must exist due to Sa>1\left|S_{a}\right|>1. Since SdS_{d} is also finite, we find by the pigeonhole principle two different elements b,cTb, c \in T such that ggT(b,d)=ggT(c,d)\operatorname{ggT}(b, d)=\operatorname{ggT}(c, d). Then a,b,c,da, b, c, d satisfy the conditions of the lemma, so indeed there exists a balanced triangle.

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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.