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Diophantine equations are polynomial expressions that have integer coefficients and
integer solutions. Although they often appear in simple forms, they are challenging to
solve because you cannot always apply standard analytical methods. For example, the
quadratic Diophantine equation
x2 = 2y2 + 2y
looks simple enough, but finding only the integer solutions to this expression is difficult.
A few solutions are
x = 0 and y = 0
x = 12 and y = 8
x = 408 and y = 288
Linear Diophantine equations in two variables are luckily very easy to solve by applying
properties of divisibility. If you have an equation ax + by = c, the general solution takes
the form
x = xo + pt
y = yo - qt
Where (xo, yo) is a particular solution, t ranges over the set of all integers, and p and q
are fixed integer coefficients of t. You can use the method below to solve such equations,
or try the calculator above.
Step 1: Find a Single Solution
The first step in finding a general solution to a linear two-variable Diophantine equation
is to find a single solution. For instance, take the equation