Alzebra by Rekha Kushwaha

Algebra Level 2

If an A.P has a cube then it has infinite many cubes. This statement is-

False Data not sufficient Not always True

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1 solution

Brian Moehring
Sep 26, 2018

If d 0 , a d\neq 0,a are integers, then ( a + n d ) 3 a 3 d = 3 a 2 n d + 3 a n 2 d 2 + n 3 d 3 d = 3 a 2 n + 3 a d n 2 + d 2 n 3 \frac{(a+nd)^3 - a^3}{d} = \frac{3a^2nd + 3an^2d^2 + n^3d^3}{d} = 3a^2n + 3adn^2 + d^2n^3 is a positive integer for infinitely many integers n n (since it's cubic in n n )

Now, if we suppose a 3 a^3 is a cube that is in an arithmetic progression with common difference d 0 d\neq 0 (which needs to at least be rational, but we may assume is an integer), then the above shows that ( a + n d ) 3 = a 3 + ( 3 a 2 n + 3 a d n 2 + d 2 n 3 ) d (a+nd)^3 = a^3 + \big(3a^2n + 3adn^2 + d^2n^3\big)d is also in the arithmetic progression for any n n such that 3 a 2 n + 3 a d n 2 + d 2 n 3 > 0 3a^2n + 3adn^2 + d^2n^3 > 0 , of which there are infinitely many.

Remarks:

  • If d = 0 d=0 then the arithmetic progression is constant, so every element is a cube as long as one is (of course, it's all the same cube, so there's a small issue of semantics, which is why I ignored that possibility.
  • If d = b c d = \frac{b}{c} is rational, then we can just consider the A.P. subsequence with common difference b b
  • If d d is irrational, then the sequence contains at most one integer, which could provide a problem, which is why I ignored it.

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