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Berkeley Math Circle Monthly Contest 6 #0hp6

Berkeley Math Circle Monthly Contest 6Hard

From module Polynomial Manipulations

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Understand the scale
Scale 0.5: Easiest math competition problems, often solvable even for early middle school students without experience. 1: Problems strictly for beginners, often at a moderate middle school level. 1.5: Problems for stronger beginner students, on the level of the middling problems in most middle school contests. 2: For motivated beginners, harder questions from the previous categories. 2.5: More advanced beginner problems, hardest questions from previous categories. 3: Early intermediate problems that require more creative thinking. 3.5: Tougher early intermediate problems that consistently stretch into higher-level creative thinking or conceptual knowledge. 4: Intermediate-level problems. 4.5: Upper intermediate problems approaching the upper bound for non-invitational sprint math competitions. 5: More difficult AIME problems or simple proof-based Olympiad-style problems. 6: High-level AIME-styled questions or introductory Olympiad-level questions. 7: Tougher Olympiad-level questions, may require more technical knowledge. 8: High-level Olympiad-level questions. 9: Expert Olympiad-level questions. 9.5: The hardest problems appearing on Olympiads which the strongest students could reasonably solve. 10: Historically notorious problems, generally unsuitable for even very hard competitions because they are exceedingly tedious, long, and difficult.
Pell's equationsTechniques: modulo, size analysis, order analysis, inequalitiesPolynomial operationsRecurrence relations

Problem

Problem:

a. Prove that for all real numbers xx and yy,

x2−2y2=−[(x+2y)2−2(x+y)2].x^{2}-2 y^{2}=-\left[(x+2 y)^{2}-2(x+y)^{2}\right] .

b. How many positive integer solutions does the equation x2−2y2=1x^{2}-2 y^{2}=1 have?

c. How many positive integer solutions does the equation x2−2y2=5x^{2}-2 y^{2}=5 have?

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