IMO 2010 N5 (P3) #
Find all functions $f : ℕ⁺ → ℕ⁺$ such that $(f(m) + n)(f(n) + m)$ is a square for any positive integers $m$ and $n$.
Answer #
$f(n) = n$ and $f(n) = n + k$ for some $k ∈ ℕ⁺$.
Solution #
We follow the official solution. The implementation is more comfortably done over $ℕ$ (the natural numbers), so we also solve an even more general functional equation as follows: given a natural number $c$, find all functions $f : ℕ → ℕ$ such that $(f(m) + n + c)(f(n) + m + c)$ is a square any $m, n ∈ ℕ$.