Problem

Source: 2016 Taiwan 1st TST IMO Mock P3

Tags: function, binomial coefficients, algebra, number theory, surjective function



Let $\mathbb{Z}^+$ denote the set of all positive integers. Find all surjective functions $f:\mathbb{Z}^+ \times \mathbb{Z}^+ \rightarrow \mathbb{Z}^+$ that satisfy all of the following conditions: for all $a,b,c \in \mathbb{Z}^+$, (i)$f(a,b) \leq a+b$; (ii)$f(a,f(b,c))=f(f(a,b),c)$ (iii)Both $\binom{f(a,b)}{a}$ and $\binom{f(a,b)}{b}$ are odd numbers.(where $\binom{n}{k}$ denotes the binomial coefficients)