Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-short-options-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2017/1/d/solution

The Chinese remainder theorem says that for pairwise coprime positive moduli and arbitrary integers , the simultaneous modular congruences
have a solution, unique modulo .
Choose distinct prime numbers . Their prime powers are pairwise coprime. Apply the Chinese remainder theorem to
For the resulting integer , each is divisible by , the required power of an integer greater than one. Adding a sufficiently large multiple of makes positive without changing any modular congruence. Thus such a positive exists, indeed infinitely many do. This is the general construction of consecutive integers divisible by prescribed prime powers.

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