Let a , b , c , d , e be positive integers such that they form an arithmetic progression. If a + b + c + d + e is a perfect cube and b + c + d is a perfect square, find the minimum possible value of c .
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did the same way....BTW (+1)
same way upvoted
I used the fact that in an A.P, the sum of terms equidistant from the middle term/terms is equal to the sum of the middle terms/twice the middle term!
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Yes , its a nice strategy too !
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You too did almost the same thing but just assumed that the common difference 1.
Did you get that question from the Arihant INMO book.
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No , its from a past KVPY paper. Actually the original question asked only for number of digits of c . But then I thought that the problem would be interesting if it asked for the value of c .
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Did it the same way.
It can be shown that the next number is 675 64=43,200. In fact, the set of the possible values of c forms the sequence {675 m^6} where m=1,2,3,....
Is 0 included as a square/cubic number? Because if it is, the minimum value of c can reach -2.
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a,b,c,d,e are POSITIVE check it.u may have misread or may not considered it
0 is not a positive number. In fact its not negative as well...
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Since a , b , c , d , e form an arithmetic progression we let
a = c − 2 x , b = c − x , d = c + x , e = c + 2 x
So we have :
a + b + c + d + e = 5 c b + c + d = 3 c
In order to have 5 c as perfect cube , c must contain 5 k where k ≡ 2 ( m o d 3 ) and to have 3 c as a perfect square , c must contain a 3 m such that m is odd in its prime factorization. But since 5 c is a perfect cube , m must be divisible by 3 .
The least such possible c = 3 3 × 5 2 = 2 7 × 2 5 = 6 7 5