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Find pairs by Euclid (Posted on 2023-08-27) Difficulty: 3 of 5
Find all positive integer solutions of the equation

n5+n4=7m-1

No Solution Yet Submitted by Danish Ahmed Khan    
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Solution re: Found one; found a proof. | Comment 2 of 3 |
(In reply to Found one; not a proof. by Larry)

By direct evaluation: n=1 is not a solution and n=2 is a solution with m=2.  Then we are concerned for "large" values of n>=3


So let's now look at Larry's factorization (n^2+n+1) * (n^3-n+1) = 7^m.  Both polynomials are powers of 7 and for the values of n we are interested in we have n^3-n+1 > n^2+n+1.  But since both are powers of 7 then their quotient must also be a power of 7.
Then (n^3-n+1) / (n^2+n+1) = 7^j

Then dividing out the polynomial: n-1 - (n-2)/(n^2+n+1) = 7^j.  Then this implies (n-2)/(n^2+n+1) is an integer.  We are looking at n>=3, so the integer will be a positive integer. 
Then we can say n-2 > n^2+n+1.  This simplifies to -3 > n^2, which has no solutions; thus there are no solutions with n>=3.

The only positive integer solution of the equation is (n,m) = (2,2).

  Posted by Brian Smith on 2023-08-27 12:54:10
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