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National Math Olympiad

Slovenia number theory

Problem

Find all prime numbers , and such that .
Solution
The identities imply that is divisible by . Since , and are prime numbers, there are only two possibilities: or .

If we get , which can be rewritten as Exactly one of the numbers and is odd, so one of the primes and is even. The only possible case is and from this we get .

If , then we can divide both sides by to get or . Now, is a prime and divides . We conclude that is equal to either or . If then , if then .

The solutions are , and .
Final answer
(p, q, r) = (2, 2, 29), (13, 3, 13), (11, 5, 11)

Techniques

Prime numbersFactorization techniquesTechniques: modulo, size analysis, order analysis, inequalities