The equation (w + x + y + z) (1/w + 1/x + 1/y + 1/z) = n

Bremner, Guy and Nowakowski [Which integers are representable as the product of the sum of three integers with the sum of their reciprocals? Math. Compos. 61(203) (1993) 117-130] investigated the Diophantine problem of representing integers n in the form (x + y + z)(1/x + 1/y + 1/z) for rationals x,y,z. For fixed n, the equation represents an elliptic curve, and the existence of solutions depends upon the rank of the curve being positive. They observed that the corresponding equation in four variables, the title equation here (representing a surface), has infinitely many solutions for each n, and remarked that it seemed plausible that there were always solutions with positive w,x,y,z when n ≥ 16. This is false, and the situation is quite subtle. We show that there cannot exist such positive solutions when n is of the form 4m², 4m² + 4, where m ≢ 2 (mod 4). Computations within our range seem to indicate that solutions exist for all other values of n.