How would you find the solutions for $x$ where the quadratic $-27x^2+234x+169$ is a perfect square

number theorypolynomialsquadratics

how would you find the solutions for $x$ where the quadratic $-27x^2+234x+169$ is a perfect square of an integer and $x$ is positive integer

I know that $x$ is from $1$ to $11$ because anything greater than $11$ makes the polynomial negative ,but how would compute the correct $x$ values without testing each of the 11 values?

Best Answer

As the comments point out, it's not really any faster to use algebraic number theory to solve the problem.

On the other hand, you can consider

$$y^2=-27x^2 + 18px + p^2$$

where $p$ is a prime number (your question is the special case $p=13$). Then solving this equation can be reduced to finding $a$, $b$ such that

$$a^2+ab+b^2=p^2\text{.}$$

Finding solutions to this last equation depends on whether the remainder of $p$ when divided by $3$ is $0$, $1$, or $2$.

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