Young Albert was given a list of positive integers, given as below by his teacher, Mr Bert.
Mr Bert challenged Albert to find out how many integers in the list can be represented as the sum of 3 cubes.
After a long think, Albert gave up and threw the list into a trash can.
How many integers in that list can be represented as the sum of 3 cubes, i.e. , where , and are all integers?
Note : , and doesn't always have to be a positive integer, it can also be a negative integer as well.
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.
It is well known that if n ≡ ± 4 m o d 9 , it cannot be represented as the sum of 3 cubes.
Basically, if n = 9 k + 4 or n = 9 k + 5 , where k is an integer, n cannot be represented as the sum of 3 cubes.
Since all the numbers in the list can be represented in the form 9 k + 4 or 9 k + 5 , all of them cannot be represented as the sum of 3 cubes.
Proof that all integers in the form of 9 k + 4 or 9 k + 5 cannot be represented as the sum of 3 cubes.
Consider the remainders of x 3 , y 3 and z 3 when divided by 9.
x 3 ≡ ( 1 , 8 , 0 ) m o d 9 y 3 ≡ ( 1 , 8 , 0 ) m o d 9 z 3 ≡ ( 1 , 8 , 0 ) m o d 9
Now, choose one remainder from x 3 , y 3 and z 3 and add them together.
For example, someone could choose the remainder of 1 from x 3 , the remainder of 8 from y 3 and the remainder of 8 from z 3 .
Adding the remainders together would get 1 + 8 + 8 = 1 7 , which is equal to 8 m o d 9 .
Now, consider all the possible sums of remainders that you can get.
It turns out that x 3 + y 3 + z 3 ≡ 0 , 1 , 2 , 3 , 6 , 7 , 8 m o d 9 .
It looks like that 4 and 5 are not in the list, indicating that the sum of 3 cubes can never give a remainder of 4 or 5 , thus completing the proof.