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Number theory Difficulty 6.3 National olympiad Find the answer

Example 3 Find all pairs of positive integers (m,n)(m, n) such that
n5+n4=7m1n^{5}+n^{4}=7^{m}-1

A number or a short expression. Fractions can be typed as 3/2, and spacing doesn't matter.

Solution

Solving, by rearranging and factoring (1), we get
7m=n5+n4+1=n5+n4+n3(n31)=n3(n2+n+1)(n1)(n2+n+1)=(n3n+1)(n2+n+1).\begin{aligned} 7^{m} & =n^{5}+n^{4}+1=n^{5}+n^{4}+n^{3}-\left(n^{3}-1\right) \\ & =n^{3}\left(n^{2}+n+1\right)-(n-1)\left(n^{2}+n+1\right) \\ & =\left(n^{3}-n+1\right)\left(n^{2}+n+1\right) . \end{aligned}

From (1), we know n>1n>1, and when n=2n=2, we get m=2m=2.
Next, consider the case where n>2n>2. We first look at the greatest common divisor of the two expressions on the right side of (2).
(n3n+1,n2+n+1)=(n3n+1(n2+n+1)(n1),n2+n+1)=(n+2,n2+n+1)=(n+2,n2+n+1+(n+2)(n+3))=(n+2,7).\begin{aligned} & \left(n^{3}-n+1, n^{2}+n+1\right)=\left(n^{3}-n+1-\left(n^{2}+n+1\right)(n-1), n^{2}+n+1\right) \\ = & \left(-n+2, n^{2}+n+1\right)=\left(-n+2, n^{2}+n+1+(-n+2)(n+3)\right) \\ = & (-n+2,7) . \end{aligned}

Thus, (n3n+1,n2+n+1)7\left(n^{3}-n+1, n^{2}+n+1\right) \mid 7.
Combining this with (2), we know that n3n+1n^{3}-n+1 and n2+n+1n^{2}+n+1 are both powers of 7, and when n3n \geqslant 3, they are both greater than 7, which implies 72(n3n+1,n2+n+1)7^{2} \mid\left(n^{3}-n+1, n^{2}+n+1\right), leading to a contradiction with the previous result.

In conclusion, the only solution is (m,n)=(2,2)(m, n)=(2,2).

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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.