Prime no.

Find the greatest prime number P such that 1991P+1 is a square number.


The answer is 1993.

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.

1 solution

Alexander Shannon
May 15, 2020

1991 p + 1 = x 2 1991 p = x 2 1 11 181 p = ( x 1 ) ( x + 1 ) 1991p+1=x^2 \implies 1991p=x^2-1 \implies 11\cdot 181 \cdot p=(x-1)(x+1)

x + 1 x+1 and x 1 x-1 are odd coprimes, cause, if they are even, p p would be a multiple of 4 4 .

11 p 11\cdot p won't be 2 2 units away from 181 181 ,for any p p , therefore, p p should be 2 2 units away from 11 181 = 1991 11\cdot 181=1991 . the only option is p = 1993 p=1993

0 pending reports

×

Problem Loading...

Note Loading...

Set Loading...