No label defined (Q4406399)

The Diophantine equation considered is Goormaghtigh's (1917): \[ {x^m-1\over x-1} = {y^n-1\over y-1}, \quad x>1, \;y>1, \;m>2, \;n>2, \] which has the solutions \[ 31={5^3-1\over 5-1} = {2^5-1\over 2-1} \quad \text{ and}\quad 8191={30^3-1\over 30-1} = {2^{13}-1\over 2-1}. \] It is generally conjectured that this equation has only finitely many solutions (maybe only the two above ones). The Author gives a detailed survey of the present knowledge on this equation (many results are due to himself). The tools used to prove these results present a great variety: Baker's theory in the Archimedian and non-Archimedian cases (especially in the ``small'' logarithms case: Shorey's trick), Diophantine geometry, Runge method, Diophantine approximation, Thue-Siegel hypergeometric method, primitive divisors, \dots For the entire collection see [Zbl 1003.00014].