Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 4.9 AIME Find the answer

How many solutions in nonnegative integers (a,b,c)(a, b, c) are there to the equation 2a+2b=c!?2^{a}+2^{b}=c!\quad ?

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

Solution

We can check that 2a+2b2^{a}+2^{b} is never divisible by 7 , so we must have c<7c<7. The binary representation of 2a+2b2^{a}+2^{b} has at most two 1 's. Writing 0 !, 1 !, 2 !, \ldots, 6!inbinary,wecancheckthattheonlypossibilitiesare ! in binary, we can check that the only possibilities are c=2,3,4,givingsolutions, giving solutions (0,0,2),(1,2,3),(2,1,3),, (3,4,4),(4,3,4)$.

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