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Reciprocal Equation #9 (Posted on 2023-07-16) Difficulty: 3 of 5
Determine all possible ordered triplets (x,y,z) of nonzero integers that satisfy this equation:
1     1      1
-- + ---- + ----- = 1
x     xy     xyz

See The Solution Submitted by K Sengupta    
Rating: 5.0000 (1 votes)

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Possible Solution | Comment 2 of 6 |
Let x=a, y=b, z=c. Start with the positive integers:
1/2+1/3+1/6=1
1/3+1/3+1/3=1
1/2+1/4+1/4=1, and these are all possible solutions. 

1/2+1/3+1/6=1 does not work, because 2 and 3 are prime.

1/3+1/3+1/3=1 works for {x,y,z} = {3,1,1}
1/2+1/4+1/4=1 works for {x,y,z} = {2,2,1}

Since 1/x cannot exceed 1, its greatest possible value is 1
Assuming that is so, then (1/xy)=-(1/xyz), or z+1 = 0, so z=-1, where {x,z} = {1, -1} and y can be any nonzero integer: e.g. 1/1+ 1/(1*13)+ 1/(1*13*-1) 

The last alternative is that x is negative. If so then x cannot be less than -1, for if so the fractions 1/xy+1/xyz would be too small to satisfy the given equation. 

So the final solution is {x,y,z} = {-1,-1, 1}


  Posted by broll on 2023-07-16 09:02:59
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