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Olympiad Training for Individual Study

Euclidean Algorithm
ft. Remainder Bounding

Evan Chen《陳誼廷》
1 October 2023

》
DNY-EUCLID

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OTIS, © Evan Chen, internal use only. Artwork contributed by Alex Zhao.

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 Evan Chen《陳誼廷》 (OTIS, updated 2023-10-01) Euclidean Algorithm

§1 Lecture Notes
§1.1 Euclidean Algorithm
The main idea here is that if a and b are positive integers with greatest common divisor
d, then any linear combination of a and b is still divisible by d. Bezout’s Theorem says
this is “best possible”:

Theorem (Bezout)
If a1 , . . . , an are integers with gcd(a1 , . . . , an ) = d then there exists integers c1 , . . . ,
cn such that X
ci ai = d.

》
A consequence of this is the so-called Euclidean algorithm: one can compute gcd(A, B)

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by iteratively doing gcd(A, B) = gcd(A, B − A), et cetera. (This often works well if A
and B are polynomials, or if |A − B| is “small”.)

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Example 1.1

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For positive integers a, b and x > 1 show that gcd(xa − 1, xb − 1) = xgcd(a,b) − 1.

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Walkthrough. νp can work, but it’s more economical to:

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(a) Show that gcd(xa − 1, xb − 1) = gcd(xa−b − 1, xb − 1) when a > b.

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(b) Iterate to conclude.

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Example 1.2 (JMO 2017/2)

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Show that the Diophantine equation

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3x3 + xy 2 x2 y + 3y 3 = (x − y)7

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has infinitely many solutions in positive integers, and characterize all the solutions.

17JMO2
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Walkthrough. Let x = da, y = db, where gcd(a, b) = 1 and a > b.

(a) Rewrite the problem as a divisibility problem of the form

(a − b)7 | P (a, b)

not involving d (here P is some polynomial).

(b) By considering ν2 ’s, show that a and b are not both odd. Since gcd(a, b) = 1, this
implies one is even and the other is odd.

(c) Show that each of the four factors of P (a, b) shares no common factors with a − b,
for any pair (a, b) of relatively prime integers. This will require you to use (b).

(d) Deduce that |a − b| = 1.

(e) Extract the curve of solutions.

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Example 1.3 (Putnam 2000 B2)

Prove that the expression
gcd(m, n) n
 

n m
is an integer for all pairs of integers n ≥ m ≥ 1.

00PTNMB2 Walkthrough. It should be possible to brute-force the problem with νp ’s, but this
problem has an unusually slick solution if you think of gcd(m, n) as linear combinations
of m and n.
(a) Show that nn m
n
∈ Z. (Yes, this is trivial.)

(b) Show that m n

n m ∈ Z.

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(c) Conclude!

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Observe that the problem is actually equivalent to (b) given the vacuous (a).

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§1.2 Remainder Bounding

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A particularly nice case is when A | B. In such a situation, one can do the following:

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• Add or subtract multiples of the expression A from B; equivalently, taking B

n
(mod A).

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• Factor the expression B, if you know something about its prime factors.

C e
• If |B| < |A|, deduce B = 0.

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For lack of a better name, I privately call this technique “remainder bounding”.

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Some special cases: if A and B are polynomials one can often do polynomial long

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division in this way. Also, if there is some “free choice” in the problem one can often also

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e.g. cause A to be 0 modulo a large prime p; if p > B this would also let one conclude

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B = 0.

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Example 1.4 (USAMO 2017/1)
Prove that there exist infinitely many pairs of relatively prime positive integers
a, b > 1 for which a + b divides ab + ba .

17AMO1 Walkthrough. It’s relatively easy to half-heartedly guess a curve of solutions (a, b)
that work. However, in this walkthrough, for demonstration I’m actually going to solve
the following problem instead:
Characterize all integers a > b > 0 such that a is even, gcd(a, b) = 1, and
a + b divides ab + ba .
Thus, you might see why I was surprised when someone told me about (a, b) = (2n +
1, 2n − 1) solving the original unmodified problem! My first reflex had been to simply
find all solutions, by remainder bounding:
(a) Show that a + b | ab + ba ⇐⇒ ba−b ≡ 1 (mod a + b) (assuming that a is even and
b is odd).

(b) Let d = a − b now, so (a) reads bd ≡ 1 (mod d + 2b). Repeat the same trick to end
up with an expression of the form d + 2b | f (d) for some function f .

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 Evan Chen《陳誼廷》 (OTIS, updated 2023-10-01) Euclidean Algorithm

Thus this is essentially a full characterization; for any d, we look at f (d), and any factor
exceeding d with the same parity will yield a solution to the original. Of course, this
implies the original USAMO problem:

(c) When d ≡ 1 (mod 4) and d > 1, extract a pair (a, b) that works.

This might seem like a roundabout way of solving a very easy problem, but I think it’s
justified on the basis that I did not need to make many arbitrary decisions. I really only
assumed a was even and b was odd for simplicity with dealing with the (−1)b ’s and so
on, and it’s not hard to imagine this can work in other cases too.
In other words: it seems in principle we should be able to get a good handle on all
solutions.

》
Example 1.5 (Shortlist 2016 N4)
Find all quadruples (n, m, k, `) of positive integers such that n > 1 and nk + mn` + 1

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divides nk+` − 1.

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16SLN4 Walkthrough. This problem is the crown example of the remainder bounding technique.
Give this one your best shot. It may be helpful to read through the example application

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to USAMO 2017/1 before tackling this one.
In what follows, A denotes the left-hand side nk + mn` + 1.

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(a) Add a suitable multiple of A to eliminate the −1 from the right-hand side.

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At this point one should obtain multiples of n on the right-hand side. We want to factor

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out these n’s, but it depends on whether ` ≤ k or not.

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Suppose first ` ≤ k.

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(b) Prove that the situation is equivalent to

va , A | nk−` + m − mn` − 1.

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(c) Show that the right-hand side of (b) has absolute value less than A.

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(d) Determine the value of m and show that ` | k. This gives you one curve of solutions.

Suppose now ` > k.

(e) Prove that the situation is equivalent to

A | n` + mn`−k + 1.

(f) Show that if m ≥ 2 we get a contradiction.

(g) Suppose m = 1. Prove that ` = 2k. This gives you the second curve of solutions.

Example 1.6 (Shortlist 2004 N3)

Find all functions f : N → N satisfying f (m)2 + f (n) | (m2 + n)2 for all positive
integers m and n.

04SLN3 Walkthrough. This is about as standard as a divisibility functional equation will get.
Starting off:

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 Evan Chen《陳誼廷》 (OTIS, updated 2023-10-01) Euclidean Algorithm

(a) Show that f (1) = 1.

Now, our idea is to first try to find certain values for which it’s easy to describe f . A
good choice for this is to think about making the right-hand side (m2 + n)2 the square
of a prime, so that there are only three possibilities. You should get the following result:

(b) For each prime p, show that f (p − 1) ∈ {p − 1, p2 − 1} with one suitable substitution.

(c) Make one more substitution to prove f (p − 1) = p − 1.

Now we have arbitrarily large known values, so it should be straightforward to use a size
argument.

(d) Fix n. Let m = p − 1 for a large prime p. Show that f (n) = n.

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In some situations, starting from A | B, you actually want to first pick a nice c > 0
(which could be either a constant or some expression, etc.) and work with A | cB instead.

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This is a bit ironic because it seems to go the “other way”, but there are situations in
which this actually makes taking mod A easier.

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As a really simple example, if you are starting from 2x + y | x2 + 2y (I made that up),

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you might actually prefer to work with 2x + y | 2x2 + 2y+1 instead because now you can
destroy the 2x2 term by subtracting x(2x + y), which you couldn’t do before without the

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coefficient of 2. Some more substantial examples appear in the practice problems.

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§1.3 Dirichlet

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Theorem 1.7 (Dirichlet’s theorem on arithmetic progressions)

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If gcd(a, b) = 1 and a, b > 0, then there are infinitely many primes in {an + b}∞
n=1 .

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§2 Practice Problems
Instructions: Solve [40♣]. If you have time, solve [50♣]. Problems with red weights are mandatory.

Life’s disappointments are harder to take when you don’t

know any swear words.

Calvin in Calvin and Hobbes

§2.1 Pure divisibility

21SLN1
[3♣] Problem 1 (Shortlist 2021 N1). Find all positive integers n ≥ 1 such that there
exists a pair (a, b) of positive integers, such that a2 + b + 3 is not divisible by the cube of

》
any prime, and
ab + 3b + 8
n= 2 .

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a +b+3
98IMO4
[2♣] Problem 2 (IMO 1998/4). Determine all pairs (x, y) of positive integers such that

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x2 y + x + y is divisible by xy 2 + y + 7.
17HMMTA4

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[2♣] Problem 3 (HMMT 2017 A4). Find all pairs of positive integers (a, b) for which
ab divides a2017 + b.

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13APMO2
[2♣] Problem 4 (APMO 2013, added by Samuel Zhou). Determine all positive integers

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n for which
n2 + 1

h
√ 2

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b nc + 2

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is an integer.

n n
05SLN6

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[5♣] Required Problem 5 (Shortlist 2005 N6). Let a and b be positive integers. If

va ,
an + n divides bn + n for every positive integer n, prove that a = b.

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22APMO1

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[3♣] Problem 6 (APMO 2022/1, added by Lum Jerliu). Find all pairs (a, b) of positive
integers such that b2 | a3 and a − 1 | b − 1.

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13ESLN4

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[3♣] Problem 7 (ELMO SL 2013 N4). Find all triples of positive integers (a, b, c) such
that the following property holds: if n is a positive integer not divisible by any prime
less than 2013 then an + bn + n is divisible by n + c.
02IMO3
[9♣] Problem 8 (IMO 2002/3). Find all pairs of positive integers m, n ≥ 3 for which
there exist infinitely many positive integers a such that
am + a − 1
an + a2 − 1
is itself an integer.

§2.2 FE
11SLN3
[5♣] Required Problem 9 (Shortlist 2011). Let n ≥ 1 be an odd integer. Determine
all functions f : Z → Z such that f (x) − f (y) divides xn − y n for all distinct integers x
and y.
13SLN1
[2♣] Problem 10 (Shortlist 2013). Find all functions f : Z>0 → Z>0 such that

m2 + f (n) | mf (m) + n.

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16SLN6
[5♣] Required Problem 11 (Shortlist 2016). Find all functions f : Z>0 → Z>0 such that
for all positive integers m and n, f (m)+f (n)−mn is nonzero and divides mf (m)+nf (n).
19SLN4
[3♣] Problem 12 (Shortlist 2019). Find all functions f : Z>0 → Z>0 such that a + f (b)
divides a2 + bf (a) for all positive integers a and b with a + b > 2019.
11IMO5
[3♣] Problem 13 (IMO 2011). Let f : Z → Z>0 be a function such that f (m − n) |
f (m) − f (n) for m, n ∈ Z. Prove that if m, n ∈ Z satisfy f (m) ≤ f (n) then f (m) | f (n).

§2.3 Mix
17ELMO1
[2♣] Problem 14 (ELMO 2017/1). Let a1 , a2 , . . . , an be positive integers with product
P , where n is an odd positive integer. Prove that

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gcd(an1 + P, an2 + P, . . . , ann + P ) ≤ 2 gcd(a1 , . . . , an )n .

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11IMO1
[2♣] Problem 15 (IMO 2011/1). Given any set A = {a1 , a2 , a3 , a4 } of four distinct
positive integers, we denote the sum a1 + a2 + a3 + a4 by sA . Let nA denote the number

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of pairs (i, j) with 1 ≤ i < j ≤ 4 for which ai + aj divides sA . Find all sets A of four

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distinct positive integers which achieve the largest possible value of nA .
ZAB34B8B
[2♣] Problem 16 (APMO Divis). Are there distinct prime numbers a, b, c which satisfy

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a | bc + b + c, b | ca + c + a, c | ab + a + b?

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[5♣] Problem 17 (TSTST 2020/4). Find all pairs of positive integers (a, b) satisfying

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the following conditions:

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(i) a divides b4 + 1,

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(ii) b divides a4 + 1,

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(iii) b ac = b bc.

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16IMO4

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[3♣] Problem 18 (IMO 2016). A set of positive integers is called fragrant if it contains

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at least two elements and each of its elements has a prime factor in common with at least
one of the other elements. Let P (n) = n2 + n + 1. What is the smallest possible positive

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integer value of b such that there exists a non-negative integer a for which the set

{P (a + 1), P (a + 2), . . . , P (a + b)}

is fragrant?
01AMO5
[3♣] Problem 19 (USAMO 2001). Let S ⊆ Z be such that:
(a) there exist a, b ∈ S with gcd(a, b) = gcd(a − 2, b − 2) = 1;

(b) if x and y are elements of S (possibly equal), then x2 − y also belongs to S.

Prove that S = Z.
18RMM4
[3♣] Required Problem 20 (RMM 2018/4). Let a, b, c, d be positive integers such that
ad 6= bc and gcd(a, b, c, d) = 1. Let S be the set of values attained by gcd(an + b, cn + d)
as n runs through the positive integers. Show that S is the set of all positive divisors of
some positive integer.
04AMO2
[3♣] Problem 21 (USAMO 2004). Let a1 , a2 , . . . , an be integers whose greatest common
divisor is 1. Let S be a set of integers with the following properties:

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 Evan Chen《陳誼廷》 (OTIS, updated 2023-10-01) Euclidean Algorithm

(a) ai ∈ S for i = 1, . . . , n.

(b) ai − aj ∈ S for i, j = 1, . . . , n, not necessarily distinct.

(c) If x, y ∈ S and x + y ∈ S, then x − y ∈ S too.

Prove that S = Z.
14SLN5
[5♣] Problem 22 (Shortlist 2014 N5). Find all primes p and positive integers (x, y)
such that xp−1 + y and y p−1 + x are powers of p.
21HMMTT6
[5♣] Required Problem 23 (HMMT 2021 T6). Find all positive integers n for which
the following holds: if d > 0 divides n, then d2 + d + 1 divides n2 + n + 1.

[1♣] Mini Survey. Fill out feedback on the OTIS-WEB portal when submitting this

》
problem set. Any thoughts on problems (e.g. especially nice, instructive, easy, etc.) or
overall comments on the unit are welcome.

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In addition, if you have any suggestions for problems to add, or want to write hints for
one problem you really liked, please do so in the ARCH system!

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The maximum number of [♣] for this unit is [81♣], including the mini-survey.

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§3 Solutions to the walkthroughs

§3.1 Solution 1.2, JMO 2017/2
Let x = da, y = db, where gcd(a, b) = 1 and a > b. The equation is equivalent to

(a − b)7 | ab a2 + 3b2 3a2 + b2

(?)

with the ratio of the two becoming d. Note that

• If a and b are both odd, then a2 + 3b2 ≡ 4 (mod 8). Similarly 3a2 + b2 ≡ 4 (mod 8).
Hence 24 exactly divides right-hand side, contradiction.

• Now suppose a − b is odd. We have gcd(a − b, a) = gcd(a − b, b) = 1 by Euclid, but

also

》
gcd(a − b, a2 + 3b2 ) = gcd(a − b, 4b2 ) = 1

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and similarly gcd(a − b, 3a2 + b2 ) = 1. Thus a − b is coprime to each of a, b, a2 + 3b2 ,
3a2 + b2 and this forces a − b = 1.

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Of course (?) holds whenever a − b = 1 as well, and thus (?) ⇐⇒ a − b = 1. This

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describes all solutions.
Remark. For cosmetic reasons, one can reconstruct the curve explicitly by selecting b =

《 al
2 (n − 1), a = 2 (n + 1) with n > 1 an odd integer. Then d = ab(a + 3b )(3a + b ) =
1 1 2 2 2 2

n
(n−1)(n+1)(n2 +n+1)(n2 −n+1)
4 , and hence the solution is
n6 −1

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4 =

h
(n + 1)(n6 − 1) (n − 1)(n6 − 1)
 

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(x, y) = (da, db) = , .
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The smallest solutions are (364, 182), (11718, 7812), . . . .

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§3.2 Solution 1.3, Putnam 2000 B2

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It should be possible to brute-force the problem with νp ’s, but here is a slick solution:
note that

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n n m n n−1
∈ Z, = ∈Z
n m n m m−1
(indeed the problem statement implies these). Hence any linear combination of this is an
integer, and we are done by Bezout lemma.

§3.3 Solution 1.4, USAMO 2017/1

One construction: let d ≡ 1 (mod 4), d > 1. Let x = d+2 .
dd +2d
Then set

x+d x−d
a= , b= .
2 2
To see this works, first check that b is odd and a is even. Let d = a − b be odd. Then:

a + b | ab + ba ⇐⇒ (−b)b + ba ≡ 0 (mod a + b)
a−b
⇐⇒ b ≡1 (mod a + b)
d
⇐⇒ b ≡ 1 (mod d + 2b)
⇐⇒ (−2) ≡ dd d
(mod d + 2b)

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 Evan Chen《陳誼廷》 (OTIS, updated 2023-10-01) Euclidean Algorithm

⇐⇒ d + 2b | dd + 2d .
So it would be enough that
dd + 2d dd + 2d
 
1
d + 2b = =⇒ b = −d
d+2 2 d+2
which is what we constructed. Also, since gcd(x, d) = 1 it follows gcd(a, b) = gcd(d, b) =
1.
Remark. Ryan Kim points out that in fact, (a, b) = (2n − 1, 2n + 1) is always a solution.

§3.4 Solution 1.5, Shortlist 2016 N4

》
We claim that all quadruples are given by:

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• m = 1 and ` = 2k, or
• ` | k and m = .

誼 se
nk−` −1
n` −1
Clearly they work.

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Rewrite as:
nk + mn` + 1 | nk+` + nk + mn` .

《 al
Now we split into cases (inevitable given the answer form):

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• If ` ≤ k, then we factor out n` to get

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nk + mn` + 1 | nk + nk−` + m

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=⇒ nk + mn` + 1 | nk−` + m − mn` − 1.

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In the last, since max(nk−` + m, mn` + 1) < nk + mn` + 1, it follows the right-hand

v
side must be zero. Consequently, m = nn` −1 . In order for this to be an integer,
k−` −1

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we must have ` | k − `, or ` | k.

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• Now suppose ` > k. We get

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nk + mn` + 1 | n` + mn`−k + 1.
Now we divide into two sub-cases:
– If m = 1, then subtracting once more gives
nk + mn` + 1 | n`−k − nk .
Since the right-hand side is clearly less than the left in absolute value, it
follows ` − k = k, or ` = 2k.
– If m ≥ 2, then we contend that nk + mn` + 1 > n` + mn`−k + 1 > 0 which
would be a contradiction. It would suffice to check (m − 1)n` + nk > mn`−k ,
but n` ≥ 2n`−k (since n > 1) and (m − 1)n` > (m − 1)n`−k , hence done.
This completes all three cases, as desired.

§3.5 Solution 1.6, Shortlist 2004 N3

The answer is that f must be the identity function (which obviously works).
First note that f (1)2 + f (1) | 4 implies f (1) = 1.

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 Evan Chen《陳誼廷》 (OTIS, updated 2023-10-01) Euclidean Algorithm

Claim — We have f (p − 1) = p − 1 for every prime p.

Proof. This follows from the two relations

1 + f (p − 1) | p2
2
f (p − 1)2 + 1 | (p − 1)2 + 1 .


To finish, for each positive integer n note that

=⇒ (p − 1)2 + f (n) | (n − f (n))2

2
(p − 1)2 + f (n) | (p − 1)2 + n

for all primes p. By taking p large enough, this forces f (n) = n.

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