Given that and are integers then is always divisible by the positive integer . Find the maximum value of .
Bonus question : Generalize this for for some whole number .
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The general answer is that N is the product of all positive primes p such that ( p − 1 ) ∣ L .
To see this, note that if ( p − 1 ) ∣ L , then either p ∣ m n or m L ≡ n L ≡ 1 mod p , so all such primes p must divide N .
Also note that p 2 ∤ N for any prime p , because we can take m = p , n = 1 .
Finally note that if ( p − 1 ) ∤ L , then let g be a primitive root mod p , take m = g , n = 1 , and we see that p ∤ m n ( m L − n L ) .
For L = 8 0 we get 2 ⋅ 3 ⋅ 5 ⋅ 1 1 ⋅ 1 7 ⋅ 4 1 = 2 3 0 0 1 0 .