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Mathematica competitions in Croatia

Croatia number theory

Problem

Show that there are no positive integers and such that is a perfect square.
Solution
Assume that there is such that . Obviously, is odd. The last equation is equivalent to .

It is easy to see that for odd number , divides . Since powers of are congruent to or modulo , the number is congruent to , or modulo . Therefore leads to a contradiction.

There are no positive integers and such that is a perfect square.

Techniques

Modular ArithmeticTechniques: modulo, size analysis, order analysis, inequalities