Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 6.3 National olympiad Prove it

Example 7 Let kk be a positive odd number, prove: 1+2++n1+2+\cdots+n divides 1k+2k++nk1^{k}+2^{k}+\cdots+n^{k}.

Solution

To prove that since 1+2++n=n(n+1)21+2+\cdots+n=\frac{n(n+1)}{2}, the problem is equivalent to proving: n(n+1)n(n+1) divides 2(1k+2k++nk)2\left(1^{k}+2^{k}+\cdots+n^{k}\right). Because nn and n+1n+1 are coprime, this is equivalent to proving
n2(1k+2k++nk)n \mid 2\left(1^{k}+2^{k}+\cdots+n^{k}\right)

and
(n+1)2(1k+2k++nk)(n+1) \mid 2\left(1^{k}+2^{k}+\cdots+n^{k}\right)

In fact, since kk is odd, by the factorization formula (6) from the first unit, we know that
2(1k+2k++nk)=[1k+(n1)k]+[2k+(n2)k]++[(n1)k+1k]+2nk\begin{aligned} & 2\left(1^{k}+2^{k}+\cdots+n^{k}\right) \\ = & {\left[1^{k}+(n-1)^{k}\right]+\left[2^{k}+(n-2)^{k}\right]+\cdots+\left[(n-1)^{k}+1^{k}\right]+2 n^{k} } \end{aligned}

is a multiple of nn. Similarly,
2(1k+2k++nk)=[1k+nk]+[2k+(n1)k]++[nk+1k]2\left(1^{k}+2^{k}+\cdots+n^{k}\right)=\left[1^{k}+n^{k}\right]+\left[2^{k}+(n-1)^{k}\right]+\cdots+\left[n^{k}+1^{k}\right]

is a multiple of n+1n+1.

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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.