2005 AIME II Problems/Problem 5
Problem
Determine the number of ordered pairs of integers such that and
Solution 1
The equation can be rewritten as Multiplying through by and factoring yields . Therefore, or , so either or .
- For the case , note that and . Thus, all values of from to will work.
- For the case , note that while . Therefore, for this case, all values of from to work.
There are possibilities for the square case and possibilities for the cube case. Thus, the answer is .
Note that Inclusion-Exclusion does not need to be used, as the problem is asking for ordered pairs , and not for the number of possible values of . Were the problem to ask for the number of possible values of , the values of under would have to be subtracted, which would just be values: and . However, the ordered pairs where b is to the sixth power are distinct, so they are not redundant. (For example, the pairs (4, 64) and (8, 64).)
Solution 2
Let . Then our equation becomes . Multiplying through by and solving the quadratic gives us or . Hence or .
For the first case , can range from 2 to 44, a total of 43 values. For the second case , can range from 2 to 12, a total of 11 values.
Thus the total number of possible values is .
Solution 3(similar to solution 2)
Using the change of base formula on the second equation to change to base , we get . If we substitute for , we get . Multiplying by on both sides and solving, we get . Substituting back in, we get . That means or . Since , we can see that for the cubed case, the maximum can be without exceeding 2005 is 12(because ) and for the squared case it can be a maximum of 44. Since , the number of values is .
~idk12345678
See also
2005 AIME II (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | ||
Preceded by Problem 4 |
Followed by Problem 6 | |
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 | ||
All AIME Problems and Solutions |
The problems on this page are copyrighted by the Mathematical Association of America's American Mathematics Competitions.