Prove that there are infinitely many distinct pairs (a, b) of co-prime integers a>1a>1 and b>1b>1 such that a^b+b^aab+ba is divisible by a+ba+b?

1 Answer
Jun 20, 2017

See below.

Explanation:

Making a=2k+1a=2k+1 and b=2k+3b=2k+3 we have that

a^b+b^a equiv 0 mod (a+b) and for k in NN^+ we have that a and b are co-primes.

Making k+1=n we have

(2n-1)^(2n+1)+(2n+1)^(2n-1) equiv 0 mod 4 as can be easily shown.

Also can be easily shown that
(2n-1)^(2n+1)+(2n+1)^(2n-1) equiv 0 mod n so

(2n-1)^(2n+1)+(2n+1)^(2n-1) equiv 0 mod 4n and thus is demonstrated that for a=2k+1 and b=2k+3

a^b+b^a equiv 0 mod (a+b) with a and b co-primes.

The conclusion is

... that there are infinitely many distinct pairs (a, b) of co-prime integers a>1 and b>1 such that a^b+b^a is divisible by a+b.