Saturday, 13 May 2017

Euler's method for linear diophantine equations

This should be extremely easy, but I'm having trouble with something. I'm following C.D. Olds "Continued Fractions" book, pages 43/44.




Consider the equation 8x+5y=81. We're searching for integer solutions. We want to find those solutions using Euler's method, that is: let's consider the variable with the smallest coefficient, y, and solve for it: y=818x5. Let's consider the biggest multiples of 5 contained in 81 and 8: 81=516+1 and 8=51+3. Therefore, y=16x+13x5=16x+t, with t=13x5. So, 3x+5t=1. We have obtained a new equation, where the coefficients are now smaller than those of the original equation. As x and y have to be integers, t has to be an integer.



I'm fine with all that. Now, we should replicate this procedure again. Here's what the author does:



x=15t3=1(231)t3=2t+t+13=2t+u. Since x and t are integers, u has to be an integer. We have x=25u and y=8u+13. By inserting here every possible integer value of u, we find the infinite solutions to our equation.



Why do we perform the substitution 5=231 rather than 5=31+2? Shouldn't the second one the one we should be doing, in analogy with the first equation?



Moreover, if we perform the substitution 5=31+2, we get x=15t3=1(31+2)t3=t+12t3=t+u, with u=12t3. By the same reasoning as before, u has to be an integer. Therefore, x=15t3=15(13u2)3=1+5u2. Which can't be correct: for every integer value of u I should get an integer solution, by setting u=0 that's not the case. What's wrong?




EDIT: nothing's wrong. I simply had to take all the integer values of u such that x and y are integers. u=0 does not satisfy this requirement. All odd values of u do.

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