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Baltic Way shortlist

Baltic Way number theory

Problem

Find all quadruples of positive integers that satisfy the system of equations
Solution
Answer: and is any permutation of . Since the equations are symmetrical with respect to variables , and , we can assume that . Dividing the second equation by the first one we obtain the equality Assume that , then also . Now from and (1) we get that , therefore , but that contradicts the inequality . Thus . It leaves us with three possibilities. . Writing (1) in the form we conclude that , but none of these values leads to a solution. and . From (1) we get that what means that and as then and . One can check, that this is a solution, therefore we get 6 solutions where and is any permutation of . * . From (1) we get that . The expression of the right hand side is larger than 2 and less than 3 if , what is impossible. Therefore and it remains to check that and are not solutions.
Final answer
t = 3 and (x, y, z) is any permutation of (1, 2, 3)

Techniques

Factorization techniquesIntegers