Find all pairs of integer solutions to .
Solution
We find all solutions of for positive integers and . If , we obtain the solution , which corresponds to in the original problem. If , consider the equation modulo 4. The left hand side is 0, and the right hand side is , so is even. Thus we can write for some positive integer , and so . Thus each of and is a power of 2, but they differ by 2, so they must equal 2 and 4 respectively. Therefore, the only other solution is and , which corresponds to in the original problem.
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