There are three natural numbers for which is a perfect square . What's the sum of those three numbers ?
Hint : .
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n 2 − 7 n + 7 = k 2 / × 4
4 n 2 − 2 8 n + 2 8 = 4 k 2
4 n 2 − 2 8 n + 4 9 − ( 2 k ) 2 = 2 1
( 2 n − 7 ) 2 − ( 2 k ) 2 = 2 1
( 2 n − 7 − 2 k ) ( 2 n − 7 + 2 k ) = 2 1
21 factors to ±3 and ±7, and ±21 and ±1, so we can have four cases where we have sets of two linear equations. For example, one of the sets is:
2 n − 7 − 2 k = 2 1
2 n − 7 + 2 k = 1
By adding these two equations together, we get 4 n − 1 4 = 2 2 = > n = 9
The two other natural solutions are 1 and 6. Their sum is 1 + 6 + 9 = 1 6