2015 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 15
Problem
Consider the set of all fractions
, where
and
are relatively prime positive integers. How many of these fractions have the property that if both numerator and denominator are increased by
, the value of the fraction is increased by
?
Solution
You can create the equation
Cross multiplying and combining like terms gives
.
This can be factored into
.
Either
has to be positive and
has to be negative or vice versa, but if
as negative, then
would be negative, so this halves our search space.
Similarly,
, so
and
, so
.
This leaves the factor pairs:
.
But we can't stop here because
and
must be relatively prime.
gives
and
.
and
are not relatively prime, so this doesn't work.
gives
and
. This doesn't work.
gives
and
. This does work.
We found one valid solution so the answer is
.