If , and are natural numbers, then what is the largest possible value of such that is divisible by for all natural numbers ?
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From Fermat we know that the largest M such that n N − n is divisible by M for all positive n (where N > 1 ) is M = ∏ ( p − 1 ) ∣ ( N − 1 ) p , where p is prime. In our case, the divisors of N − 1 = 1 0 are 1,2,5 and 10, and the possible values for p are 2, 3 and 11 (we reject 6 as it fails to be prime). Thus M = 2 × 3 × 1 1 = 6 6 .