October 13, 2009

Show separately that the numbers 10201, 10101, and 100011 are composite in any base.

Solution.   Let $b$ be the base. Then
\begin{eqnarray} 10201 &=& b^4 + 2b^2 + 1 = (b^2+1)^2 \\ 10101 &=& b^4 + b^2 + 1 = (b^2+b+1)(b^2-b+1) \end{eqnarray}
and since $x\ge 2$, both factors exceed 1. Finally
100011 = b^5 + b + 1 = (b^2+b+1)(b^3 - b^2 + 1)
and again both factors exceed 1.