International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics

————————————————————————–
Volume 26 No. 4 2006, 563-568

A NOTE ON THE DIOPHANTINE EQUATION x! + A = y 2

Alain Togbé
Department of Mathematics
Purdue University North Central
1401 S, U.S. 421, Westville IN 46391, USA
e-mail: atogbe@pnc.edu

Abstract: In this paper, we study the variant of the Brocard-Ramanujan

Diophantine equation x! + A = y 2 . In fact, we consider the cases A = 4k + 2,
A = 4(k+1)+2, A = 4(k+1)+3, where k ∈ IN . We prove that the simultaneous
equations have a unique integral solution if and only if k + 2 is a square.

AMS Subject Classification: 11D85, 11Y50

Key Words: Brocard-Ramanujan, Diophantine equation

1. Introduction

In [2] and [3], Brocard set the following problem: Pour quelles valeurs du nom-
bre entier x l’expression
1 · 2 · 3 · 4...x + 1
est-elle un carré parfait?
In 1913, Ramanujan, see [14] and [15], posed the same problem as follows:
the number n! + 1 is a square for n = 4, 5, 7, find other values. So the Diophan-
tine equation
n! + 1 = y 2 (1)
is called the Brocard-Ramanujan Diophantine equation. Solving (1) is still an
open problem, see D25 in [9]. Contributing to the problem, Gerardin, see [7],
assumed that the equation (1) has no solutions for 7 < n < 25. His ideas were
used by Gupta, see [8], to prove that the equation (1) has no solutions except
the known solutions for n ≤ 63. In 1993, Overholt, see [13], proved that the

Received: February 6, 2006 c 2006, Academic Publications Ltd.

564 A. Togbé

weak form of Szpiro’s conjecture implies that the equation (1) has only finitely
many solutions. In fact, the weak form of Szpiro’s conjecture is a special case
of the abc-conjecture, i.e. there exists a constant s such that if a, b, and c are
positive integers satisfying a + b = c with gcd(a, b) = 1, then

|abc| ≤ rad(abc)s ,

where rad(N ) is the product of all primes dividing N taken without repetition.
In 2000, Berndt and Galway, see [1], used a computational method to show
that the Brocard-Ramanujan Diophantine equation has no solutions except
(n, y) = (4, 5) (5, 11), (7, 71), for n ≤ 109 .
Recently, many variants of the Brocard-Ramanujan Diophantine equation
have been studied. In 1996, Dabrowski replaced 1 by A. In fact, he studied,
see [4], the Diophantine equation

n! + A = y 2 , (2)

where n and y are integers. He proved that if A is not a square then the
equation (2) has only a finite number of integral solutions. Also he showed
that the weak form of Szpiro’s conjecture implies that the equation (2) has
only finitely many solutions if A is a square. Using the same method, Dufour
and Kihel, see [5], proved that the weak form of Hall’s conjecture (a special
case of the abc-conjecture) implies that the equation (2) has only finitely many
solutions. The weak form of Hall’s conjecture states that for every ε > 0, there
exists a constant Cε depending on ε > 0 only such that if x, y, and k are integers
satisfying y 2 = x3 + k, then

max(|x3 |, |y 2 |) ≤ Cε |k|6+ε . (3)

Also they proved that if the integer A is not a q-th power of an integer, with n
and y integers, then the equation

n! + A = y q , (4)

has only finitely many solutions. In [6], Erdös and Obláth showed that the
Diophantine equation
xd ± 1 = n! (5)
has no solutions with |x| > 1 and d ≥ 3 a prime. In [12], Luca proved that the
abc-conjecture implies that, for any P ∈ ZZ[X], the Diophantine equation

P (x) = n! (6)
A NOTE ON THE DIOPHANTINE EQUATION x! + A = y 2 565

has finitely many solutions. In 2004, Kihel and Nwabueze, see [10], used p-
adic linear forms in logarithms to prove that any solution to the Diophantine
equation
P (n)n! + xq = y q , y odd, (7)
where P ∈ ZZ[X] is a polynomial of any degree, verifies

2n 2 2
< y 4000 log (2) log (q) .
n+1
Moreover, they used a computational method to show that the Diophantine
equation
n
2
Π k+1 = y , (8)
k 6| n
k=1
n
Q
where k is the product of all 1 ≤ k < n such that k does not divide n,
k6|n , k=1
has only two solutions (n, y) = (4, 2), (5, 5), for n ≤ 105 . Recently, Kihel and
Luca, see [11], studied more variants of the Brocard-Ramanujan Diophantine
equation.
In this paper, we consider the Diophantine equation (2) with particular
expressions of A. In fact, we study simultaneous equations of the type (2). We
show that these equations have a unique solution.

2. The Result

In [4], studying the Diophantine equation x! + A = y 2 , Dabrowski proved the

following proposition.
Proposition 1. Assume A ∈ IN is not a square. Then

x! + A = y 2 (9)

has at most finitely many solutions in positive integers x and y.

Moreover, on page 323, after studying the case A = 3k + 2, he made the
following remark.
Remark 1. The other cases are more complicated. By a similar argument
we have that the equation (9) has ≤ 2 solutions for A = 4k + 3, and it has ≤ 1
solutions for A = 4k + 2.
566 A. Togbé

Let us consider simultaneously the following equations

x1 ! + [4(k + 1) + 3] = y 2 , (10)
x2 ! + [4(k + 1) + 2] = y 2 , (11)
and
x3 ! + [4k + 2] = y 2 . (12)
From Proposition 2.1 and Remark 2.2, these equations have finitely many so-
lutions and the number of solutions is at most 2. Let us specify that, in these
three above equations, the variable y is fixed. We obtain the following result.
Proposition 2. The simultaneous equations (10), (11), and (12) have a
unique solution in positive integers if and only if the number k + 2 is square.
Moreover, we have x1 = 1 or 0, x2 = 2, x3 = 3, and (k, y) = (u2 − 2, 2u), where
u ∈ IN \ {0, 1}.
Proof. The equations (10) and (11) give
x2 ! = x1 ! + 1. (13)
One can deduce from (10) and (12) that
x3 ! = x1 ! + 5. (14)
Finally, the equations (11) and (12) imply
x3 ! = x2 ! + 4. (15)
The equation (13) has only two possibilities that are
( (
x1 = 0, x1 = 1,
and
x2 = 2; x2 = 2.
Therefore, it is clear that x3 = 3 in both cases. Replacing the values of x1 , x2 ,
and x3 in (10), (11), and (12) for both cases, we obtain
y 2 = 4(k + 2).
So y is even, say y = 2u. Moreover, k + 2 must be a square. Therefore, we see
that
k = u2 − 2.
As k is a positive integer, the smallest value of u is 2. So for u fixed, the
solution is unique because of Remark 2.2. This completes the proof of the
proposition.
We have the following remarks.
A NOTE ON THE DIOPHANTINE EQUATION x! + A = y 2 567

Remarks 1. 1. We notice that there exist other values of the parameter

k for which each of the equations (10), (11), and (12) has solutions. We do not
consider these values in the present study.
2. The equation
x! + 505 = y 2 (16)

has at least three solutions which are

(x, y) = (4, 23), (5, 25), (6, 35).

Here 505 = 4 · 126 + 1. Let us specify that we look the solutions to the equation
(2) for many values of A and the equation (16) is the only equation having at
least 3 solutions. Could we find another value of A such that the equation (2)
has at least 3 solutions?
One can see that we obtain a sequence depending on u.

u k 4k + 2 4(k + 1) + 2 4(k + 1) + 3 y
2 2 10 14 15 4
3 7 30 34 35 6
4 14 58 62 63 8
5 23 94 98 99 10
6 34 138 142 143 12
7 47 190 194 195 14
8 62 250 254 255 16
9 79 318 322 323 18
10 98 394 398 399 20
.. .. .. .. .. ..
. . . . . .
35 1223 4894 4898 4899 70

Table 1: Some numerical examples

Acknowledgments

The author is grateful Purdue University North Central for the support. He
thanks O. Kihel and F. Luca for sending him copies of their papers.
568 A. Togbé

References

[1] B.C. Berndt, W.F. Galway, On the Brocard-Ramanujan Diophantine equa-

tion n! + 1 = m2 , The Ramanujan Journal, 4 (2000), 41-42.

[2] H. Brocard, Question 166, Nouv. Corresp. Math., 2 (1876), 287.

[3] H. Brocard, Question 1532, Nouv. Ann. Math., 4 (1885), 291.

[4] A. Dabrowski, On the Diophantine equation n! + A = y 2 , Nieuw Arch.

Wisk., 14 (1996), 321-324.

[5] B. Dufour, O. Kihel, The Brocard-Ramanujan Diophantine equation, Int.

Math. J., 5, No. 6 (2004), 577-580.

[6] P. Erdös, R. Obláth, Ü ber Diophantische Gleichungen der Form n! =

xp ± y p und n! ± m! = xp , Acta Szeged, 8 (1937), 241-255.

[7] A. Gérardin, Contribution à l’étude de l’équation 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · · · z + 1 = y 2 ,

Nouv. Ann. Math., 6, No. 4 (1906), 222-226.

[8] H. Gupta, On a Brocard-Ramanujan problem, Math. Student, 3 (1935),

71.

[9] R.K. Guy, Unsolved Problems in Number Theory, Springer-Verlag (1994).

[10] O. Kihel, K. Nwabueze, On few Diophantine equations related to the

Brocard-Ramanujan Diophantine equation, International Journal of Pure
and Applied Mathematics, 6, No. 4 (2004), 477-483.

[11] O. Kihel, F. Luca, Variants of the Brocard-Ramanujan equation, Preprint.

[12] Luca, Florian, The Diophantine equation P (x) = n! and a result of M.

Overholt, Glas. Mat. Ser. III, 37, No. 2 (2002), 269-273.

[13] M. Overholt, The Diophantine equation n! + 1 = m2 , Bull. London Math.

Soc., 25 (1993), 104.

[14] S. Ramanujan, Question 469, J. Indian Math. Soc., 5 (1913), 59.

[15] S. Ramanujan, Collected Papers, New York (1962).