Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 5.3 AIME, harder Find the answer

Suppose a,b,ca, b, c, and dd are pairwise distinct positive perfect squares such that ab=cda^{b}=c^{d}. Compute the smallest possible value of a+b+c+da+b+c+d.

A number or a short expression. Spacing and $ signs are ignored.

Solution

Note that if aa and cc are divisible by more than one distinct prime, then we can just take the prime powers of a specific prime. Thus, assume aa and cc are powers of a prime pp. Assume a=4xa=4^{x} and c=4yc=4^{y}. Then xb=ydx b=y d. Because bb and dd are squares, the ratio of xx to yy is a square, so assume x=1x=1 and y=4y=4. We can't take b=4b=4 and c=1c=1, but we instead can take b=36b=36 and c=9c=9. It can be checked that other values of xx and yy are too big. This gives 436=25694^{36}=256^{9}, which gives a sum of 305. If aa and cc are powers of 9 , then max(a,c)94\max (a, c) \geq 9^{4}, which is already too big. Thus, 305 is optimal.

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