Find the total number of integers n such that ( n + 1 ) ∣ ( n 3 − 1 ) .
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Note that n 3 + 1 = ( n + 1 ) ( n 2 − n + 1 ) , so n + 1 ∣ n 3 + 1 . We now have the following
n + 1 n + 1 ⟹ n + 1 ∣ n 3 − 1 ∣ n 3 + 1 ∣ ( n 3 + 1 ) − ( n 3 − 1 ) = 2
Therefore, n + 1 ∣ 2 . The factors of 2 are − 2 , − 1 , 1 , 2 , which gives the values of n as − 3 , − 2 , 0 , 1 . Therefore, there are 4 different integers which satisfy.
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Note first that n 3 − 1 = ( n + 1 ) 3 − 3 n 2 − 3 n − 2 = ( ( n + 1 ) 2 − 3 n ) ( n + 1 ) − 2 .
Now clearly n = − 1 is not a solution since 0 does not divide 2 , so dividing through by n + 1 yields
n + 1 n 3 − 1 = ( ( n + 1 ) 2 − 3 n ) − n + 1 2 ,
which will be an integer whenever ( n + 1 ) ∣ 2 . Since the divisors of 2 are just ± 1 and ± 2 , there are a total of 4 possible values of n , namely − 3 , − 2 , 0 and 1 .