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The version I first saw used '4' instead of '896'. Which frankly made the answer large enough that no reasonable amount of brute force could find it.

A good write up can be found here: https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-find-the-positive-integer-s...



That is an amazing, detailed explanation. (Don't be fooled by the quora location.) Spoilers: the solution to the equation is 80-digit numbers, which can be obtained by using elliptic curves, which the link explains in detail.


That is fascinating thank you, and a great lead into some more advanced topics.




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