What is the second smallest integer with integral third, fourth and fifth roots?
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Problem
What is the second smallest integer with integral third, fourth and fifth roots? (1 is obviously the smallest.) I solved this with a short C program, but was wondering if it could be solved algebraically? -- Bryan Moore
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The answer is 2^60 = 1152921504606846976. Indeed, consider the prime decomposition of x as p1^a1 . ... . pr^ar. All the exponents have to be multiples of 3, 4 and 5 at the same time (otherwise the corresponding roots are not integers), so since 3, 4 and 5 are mutually prime, all exponents are multiples of 60. The smallest such integer is 2^60, followed by 3^60, 4^60, etc... -- Denis Auroux <auroux@clipper.ens.fr>