Determine all composite integers that satisfy the following property: if , , , are all the positive divisors of with , then divides for every .
Solution
To solve the problem, we analyze the divisors of a composite integer and determine for which the divisibility condition holds.
Let be a composite integer with the positive divisors such that . We must check that for every , divides .
First, consider the case where for some prime and integer . The divisors of are .
For each , the divisibility condition is:
Substituting the divisors gives:
Simplifying, we have:
which holds true because clearly divides .
Therefore, if for some prime and integer , the condition is satisfied.
Now, assume has at least two distinct prime factors, say for distinct primes and . The divisors include .
Consider as a small example. The divisors are , and for , should divide , which it does. For , should divide , which is not divisible by 2.
Hence, having multiple distinct prime factors can violate the divisibility condition, verifying that only numbers of the form satisfy the given property.
The solution is that must be of the form: