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jmc

algebra senior

Problem

The difference between two perfect squares is 133. What is the smallest possible sum of the two perfect squares?
Solution
We are given that , which is the same as . has two pairs of factors: 1 and 133, and 7 and 19. So, either and , or and . It is clear that and will be much larger in the first case, because they must sum to 133, so, because we are trying to minimize , we can simply consider the second case. Through simple algebra, we find that and . Thus, is minimized as .
Final answer
205