Find the number of ordered triplets

contest-mathnumber theory

It is an olympiad problem.
Find all ordered triples of positive integers(a,b,c),
Such that 1/a+1/b+1/c=3/4

Till now i got only 1 solutions, but i expect there are more than that.

I brought 4 to the LHS and got 4/a+4/b+4/c=3, it is trivial though, and hence a=b=c=4.
Hence from the above one, i got 1 solution.
I expect there are many more but could not find it, ido not know what to do next. Please help!

Edit: i found there must be 25 solutions in all

Best Answer

If the smallest denominator is $4$, then they are all $4$, giving $\frac{1}{4} + \frac{1}{4} + \frac{1}{4}$.

If the smallest denominator is $3$, then $\frac{1}{b} + \frac{1}{c} = \frac{5}{12}$. Either $b$ or $c$ must be less than or equal to $4$. If $b=4$, $c=6$, giving $\frac{1}{3}+ \frac{1}{4} + \frac{1}{6}$. If $b=3$, $c=12$, giving $\frac{1}{3} + \frac{1}{3} + \frac{1}{12}$.

If the smallest denominator is $2$, then $\frac{1}{b} + \frac{1}{c} = \frac{1}{4}$. Either $b$ or $c$ must be less than or equal to $8$. This gives several more solutions: $$\{a,b,c\} = \{2,5,20\}, \{2,6,12\}, \{2,8,8\}.$$

From there, you just need to figure out how many orderings of each triplet there are.

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