When does the equation
x2 + 7 = 2n
have integer solutions?
This is an interesting question, but why would anyone ask it? This post looks at three paths that have led to this problem.
Ramanujan
Ramanujan [1] considered this problem in 1913. He found five solutions and conjectured that there were no more. Then in 1959 three authors [2] wrote a paper settling the conjecture, showing that Ramanujan was right. We don’t know what motivated Ramanujan, but the subsequent paper was a response to Ramanujan.
Nagell
T. Nagell [3] published a solution in 1960 after becoming aware of [2]. This paper republished in English a solution the author had first published in 1948 in a Norwegian journal. Nagell says he gave the problem as an exercise in a number theory textbook he wrote in 1951. By mentioning his textbook but not Ramanujan, Nagell implies that he came to the problem independently.
Golay
I ran into the problem a week ago in the course of looking at a problem that came out of Golay’s work in coding theory. A necessary condition for the existence of a perfect binary code of length n including p redundant bits that can detect up to 2 errors is
This leads, via the quadratic equation, to the equation at the top of the post.
All solutions
Each of the paths above states the problem in different notation; it’s simpler to state the solutions without variables.
- 12 + 7 = 23
- 32 + 7 = 24
- 52 + 7 = 25
- 112 + 7 = 27
- 1812 + 7 = 215
Verifying that these are solutions is trivial. Proving that there are no more solutions is not trivial.
References
[1] K. J. Sanjana and T. P. Trivedi, J. Indian Math. Soc. vol. 5 (1913) pp. 227-228.
[2] Th. Skolem, S. Chowla and D. J. Lewis. The Diophantine Equation 2n+2 – 7 = x2. Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society , Oct., 1959, Vol. 10, No. 5. pp. 663-669
[3] T. Nagell, The Diophantine Equation x2 + 7 = 2n. Arkiv för Matematik, Band 4 nr 13. Jan 1960.
Thanks to Brian Hopkins for his help on this problem via his answer to my question on Math Overflow.
Here’s a relevant OEIS entry: https://oeis.org/A038198
Most of the time the posts here streak past me like hypersonic craft in the stratosphere, while I’m waiting below for a snail to go past me on the ground allowing me time to focus on it.
This post made me wonder about the properties primes lose with size, where I view problems having prime solutions as reflecting on the properties of primes as a whole, and how it seems that larger primes have fewer such properties.
Is this true? Are large primes actually “simpler” in this respect? Or are there “general-ish” properties that primes obtain only with increasing size? That is, characteristics that do not apply to smaller primes.