1996 AIME Problems/Problem 8

Problem

The harmonic mean of two positive integers is the reciprocal of the arithmetic mean of their reciprocals. For how many ordered pairs of positive integers $(x,y)$ with $x<y$ is the harmonic mean of $x$ and $y$ equal to $6^{20}$ ?

Solution

The harmonic mean of $x$ and $y$ is equal to $\frac{1}{\frac{\frac{1}{x}+\frac{1}{y}}2} = \frac{2xy}{x+y}$ , so we have $xy=(x+y)(3^{20}\cdot2^{19})$ , and by SFFT, $(x-3^{20}\cdot2^{19})(y-3^{20}\cdot2^{19})=3^{40}\cdot2^{38}$ . Now, $3^{40}\cdot2^{38}$ has $41\cdot39=1599$ factors, one of which is the square root ( $3^{20}2^{19}$ ). Since $x<y$ , the answer is half of the remaining number of factors, which is $\frac{1599-1}{2}= \boxed{799}$ .

1996 AIME (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
Preceded by Problem 7	Followed by Problem 9
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15
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1996 AIME Problems/Problem 8

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