OFFSET
1,1
COMMENTS
This is a famous hard problem and the terms shown are only conjectured values.
The terms shown are not the difference of two powers below 10^19. - Don Reble
One can immediately represent all odd numbers and multiples of 4 as differences of two squares. - Don Reble
Ed Pegg Jr remarks (Oct 07 2002) that the techniques of Preda Mihailescu (see MathWorld link) might make it possible to prove that 6, 14, ... are indeed members of this sequence.
Numbers n such that there is no solution to Pillai's equation. - T. D. Noe, Oct 12 2002
The terms shown are not the difference of two powers below 10^27. - Mauro Fiorentini, Jan 03 2020
REFERENCES
R. K. Guy, Unsolved Problems in Number Theory, Sections D9 and B19.
P. Ribenboim, Catalan's Conjecture, Academic Press NY 1994.
T. N. Shorey and R. Tijdeman, Exponential Diophantine Equations, Cambridge University Press, 1986.
LINKS
Mauro Fiorentini, Table of n, a(n) for n = 1..138
A. Baker, Review of "Catalan's conjecture" by P. Ribenboim, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 32 (1995), 110-112.
M. E. Bennett, On Some Exponential Equations Of S. S. Pillai, Canad. J. Math. 53 (2001), 897-922.
Yu. F. Bilu, Catalan's Conjecture (after Mihailescu)
J. Boéchat, M. Mischler, La conjecture de Catalan racontée a un ami qui a le temps, arXiv:math/0502350 [math.NT], 2005-2006.
C. K. Caldwell, The Prime Glossary, Catalan's Problem
T. Metsankyla, Catalan's Conjecture: Another old Diophantine problem solved
Alf van der Poorten, Remarks on the sequence of 'perfect' powers
P. Ribenboim, Catalan's Conjecture, Séminaire de Philosophie et Mathématiques, 6 (1994), pp. 1-11.
P. Ribenboim, Catalan's Conjecture, Amer. Math. Monthly, Vol. 103(7) Aug-Sept 1996, pp. 529-538.
Gérard Villemin, Conjecture de Catalan (French)
Eric Weisstein's World of Mathematics, Draft Proof of Catalan's Conjecture Circulated
Eric Weisstein's World of Mathematics, Pillai's Conjecture
Wikipedia, Catalan's conjecture
Wikipedia, Hall's conjecture
EXAMPLE
Examples showing that certain numbers are not in the sequence: 10 = 13^3 - 3^7, 22 = 7^2 - 3^3, 29 = 15^2 - 14^2, 31 = 2^5 - 1, 52 = 14^2 - 12^2, 54 = 3^4 - 3^3, 60 = 2^6 - 2^2, 68 = 10^2 - 2^5, 72 = 3^4 - 3^2, 76 = 5^3 - 7^2, 84 = 10^2 - 2^4, ... 342 = 7^3 - 1^2, ...
CROSSREFS
n such that A076427(n) = 0. [Corrected by Jonathan Sondow, Apr 14 2014]
For a count of the representations of a number as the difference of two perfect powers, see A076427. The numbers that appear to have unique representations are listed in A076438.
KEYWORD
nonn,hard
AUTHOR
Zak Seidov, Oct 07 2002
EXTENSIONS
Corrected by Don Reble and Jud McCranie, Oct 08 2002. Corrections were also sent in by Neil Fernandez, David W. Wilson, and Reinhard Zumkeller.
STATUS
approved