Lets say this expression is a prime number: and n,k are natural numbers.
How many pairs of satisfy the expression above?
note: This was a task of the first round of the German mathematical olympiade 1995/96 for tenth graders.
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For every natural number n , 3 n − 1 is an odd number.
For every natural number k , 7 k − 1 is an odd number.
An odd number plus an odd number is always an even number.
There is only one even prime number: 2 . 2 as sum of two natural numbers can only be expressed by 1 + 1 .
So 3 n − 1 = 1 Thus: n = 1 .
And 7 k − 1 = 1 Thus: k = 1 .
As you can see, there exists only one pair of ( n ; k ) : ( 1 ; 1 )