How many ordered triples ( ) of integers are there such that
This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try
refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and,
finally, (c)
loading the
non-javascript version of this page
. We're sorry about the hassle.
From x 3 + y 3 + z 3 = x + y + z = 3 and ( x + y + z ) 3 = x 3 + y 3 + z 3 + 3 ( x + y ) ( y + z ) ( z + x )
we obtain ( x + y ) ( y + z ) ( z + x ) = 8 or ( 3 − z ) ( 3 − x ) ( 3 − y ) = 8
On the other hand, ( 3 − z ) + ( 3 − x ) + ( 3 − y ) − 3 ( x + y + z ) = 6 , implying that either 3 − x , 3 − y , 3 − z are all even, or exactly one of them is even.
In the first case, we get ∣ 3 − x ∣ = ∣ 3 − y ∣ = ∣ 3 − z ∣ = 2 , yielding x , y , z ∈ { 1 , 5 } .
Because x + y + z = 3 , the only possibility is x = y = z = 1 .
In the second case, one of ∣ 3 − x ∣ , ∣ 3 − y ∣ , ∣ 3 − z ∣ must be 8, say ∣ 3 − x ∣ = 8 , yielding x ∈ { − 5 , 1 1 } and ∣ 3 − y ∣ = ∣ 3 − z ∣ = 1 .
Taking into account that x + y + z = 3 , the only possibility is x = − 5 and y = z = 4 .
In conclusion, 4 desired triples are ( 1 , 1 , 1 ) , ( − 5 , 4 , 4 ) , ( 4 , − 5 , 4 ) and ( 4 , 4 , − 5 ) .