Size Problem Collection

Rohan Goyal
May 22, 2021

The problems are roughly sorted in order of difficulty. I hope you enjoy them!

§1 Problems
Problem 1.1 (Schur’s). Given any integer polynomial P , the set

SP = {p; ∃n ∈ N s.t. p|P (n) and p is prime}

is infinite.

Problem 1.2 (ISL 2009/N2). A positive integer N is called balanced, if N = 1 or if N

can be written as a product of an even number of not necessarily distinct primes. Given
positive integers a and b, consider the polynomial P defined by P (x) = (x + a)(x + b).
(a) Prove that there exist distinct positive integers a and b such that all the number P (1),
P (2),. . ., P (50) are balanced.
(b) Prove that if P (n) is balanced for all positive integers n, then a = b.

Problem 1.3 (Ibero-American 2019/6). Let a1 , a2 , . . . , a2019 be positive integers and P

a polynomial with integer coefficients such that, for every positive integer n,

P (n) divides an1 + an2 + · · · + an2019 .

Prove that P is a constant polynomial.

Problem 1.4 (EGMO 2021/6). Does there exist a nonnegative integer a for which the
equation jmk jmk jmk jmk
+ + + ··· + = n2 + a
1 2 3 m
has more than one million different solutions (m, n) where m and n are positive integers?

Problem 1.5 (ISL 2018/A3). Given any set S of positive integers, show that at least
one of the following two assertions holds:
P P
(1) There exist distinct finite subsets F and G of S such that x∈F 1/x = x∈G 1/x;
P
(2) There exists a positive rational number r < 1 such that x∈F 1/x 6= r for all finite
subsets F of S.

Problem 1.6 (STEMS 2021). Determine all non-constant monic polynomials P (x) with
integer coefficients such that no prime p > 10100 divides any number of the form P (2n )

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Rohan Goyal (May 22, 2021) Size Problem Collection

Problem 1.7 (Iran TST 2019/1). Let S be a subset of Natural numbers which has
infinite members.
S 0 = {xy + y x , x, y ∈ S, x 6= y}
Prove the set of prime divisors of S 0 has also infinite members.
Problem 1.8 (Taiwan TST Round 3 2021). Let n be a given positive integer. We say
that a positive integer m is n-good if and only if there are at most 2n distinct primes p
satisfying p2 | m.

(a) Show that if two positive integers a, b are coprime, then there exist positive integers
x, y so that axn + by n is n-good.

(b) Show that for any k positive integers a1 , . . . , ak satisfying gcd(a1 , . . . , ak ) = 1, there
exist positive integers x1 , . . . , xk so that a1 xn1 + a2 xn2 + · · · + ak xnk is n-good.

(Remark: a1 , . . . , ak are not necessarily pairwise distinct)

Problem 1.9 (APMO 2020/4). Let Z denote the set of all integers. Find all polynomials
P (x) with integer coefficients that satisfy the following property:

For any infinite sequence a1 , a2 , . . . of integers in which each integer in Z appears exactly
once, there exist indices i < j and an integer k such that ai + ai+1 + · · · + aj = P (k).
Problem 1.10 (USAMO 2014/6). Prove that there is a constant c > 0 with the
following property: If a, b, n are positive integers such that gcd(a + i, b + j) > 1 for all
i, j ∈ {0, 1, . . . n}, then
n
min{a, b} > cn · n 2 .
Problem 1.11 (Vietnam TST 2021/6). Let n ≥ 3 be a positive integers and p be a
prime number such that p > 6n−1 − 2n + 1. Let S be the set of n positive integers with
different residues modulo p. Show that there exists a positive integer c such that there are
exactly two ordered triples (x, y, z) ∈ S 3 with distinct elements, such that x − y + z − c
is divisible by p.
n
Problem 1.12 (ISL 2012 N6). Let x and y be positive integers. If x2 − 1 is divisible
by 2n y + 1 for every positive integer n, prove that x = 1.
Problem 1.13 (ISL 2018 N7). Let n ≥ 2018 be an integer, and let a1 , a2 , . . . , an , b1 , b2 , . . . , bn
be pairwise distinct positive integers not exceeding 5n. Suppose that the sequence
a1 a2 an
, ,...,
b1 b2 bn
forms an arithmetic progression. Prove that the terms of the sequence are equal.
√
Problem 1.14 (ISL 2019/N6). Let H = {bi 2c : i ∈ Z>0 } = {1, 2, 4, 5, 7, . . . } and let n
be a positive integer. Prove that there exists a constant C such that, if A ⊆ {1, 2, . . . , n}
√
satisfies |A| ≥ C n, then there exist a, b ∈ A such that a − b ∈ H. (Here Z>0 is the set
of positive integers, and bzc denotes the greatest integer less than or equal to z.)
Problem 1.15 (ISL 2019/N7). Prove that there is a constant c > 0 and infinitely many
positive integers n with the following property: there are infinitely many positive integers
that cannot be expressed as the sum of fewer than cn log(n) pairwise coprime nth powers.
Problem 1.16 (China TST 2021). Given positive integer n. Prove that for any inte-
gers a1 , a2 , · · · , an , at least d n(n−6)
19 e numbers from the set {1, 2, · · · ,
n(n−1)
2 } cannot be
represented as ai − aj (1 ≤ i, j ≤ n).