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PrintChina Western Mathematical Olympiad
China number theory
Problem
Prove that for any given positive integer , there exist infinitely many positive integers , such that the numbers are all composite.
Solution
For any given positive integer , choose positive integer sufficiently large such that . Consider the following integers: all of which are larger than . From each of these integers, pick a prime factor: , and let where is an arbitrary positive integer. For any fixed integer (), one has . In fact, if , then the result is obvious. Assuming that , it follows from Fermat's little theorem that Similarly, one has . Observe that Hence, is a composite number. Therefore, is one of the positive integers such that are all composite. As is arbitrarily chosen, there are infinitely many such positive integers satisfying the conditions above.
Techniques
Fermat / Euler / Wilson theoremsPrime numbers