Let p be a prime and let r, s be positive integers. In this paper, we prove that the Goormaghtigh equation $(x^m-1)/(x-1)=(y^n-1)/(y-1)$, $x,y,m,n \in {\mathbb {N}}$, $\min \{x,y\}>1$, $\min \{m,n\}>2$ with $(x,y)=(p^r,p^s+1)$ has only one solution $(x,y,m,n)=(2,5,5,3)$. This result is related to the existence of some partial difference sets in combinatorics.

Let a, b, c be fixed coprime positive integers with $\min \{a,b,c\}>1$ . We discuss the conjecture that the equation $a^{x}+b^{y}=c^{z}$ has at most one positive integer solution $(x,y,z)$ with $\min \{x,y,z\}>1$ , which is far from solved. For any odd positive integer r with $r>1$ , let $f(r)=(-1)^{(r-1)/2}$ and $2^{g(r)}\,\|\, r-(-1)^{(r-1)/2}$ . We prove that if one of the following conditions is satisfied, then the conjecture is true: (i) $c=2$ ; (ii) a, b and c are distinct primes; (iii) $a=2$ and either $f(b)\ne f(c)$ , or $f(b)=f(c)$ and $g(b)\ne g(c)$ .

Jeśmanowicz conjectured that $(x,y,z)=(2,2,2)$ is the only positive integer solution of the equation $(*)\; ((\kern1.5pt f^2-g^2)n)^x+(2fgn)^y=((\kern1.5pt f^2+g^2)n)^x$ , where n is a positive integer and f, g are positive integers such that $f>g$ , $\gcd (\kern1.5pt f,g)=1$ and $f \not \equiv g\pmod 2$ . Using Baker’s method, we prove that: (i) if $n>1$ , $f \ge 98$ and $g=1$ , then $(*)$ has no positive integer solutions $(x,y,z)$ with $x>z>y$ ; and (ii) if $n>1$ , $f=2^rs^2$ and $g=1$ , where r, s are positive integers satisfying $(**)\; 2 \nmid s$ and $s<2^{r/2}$ , then $(*)$ has no positive integer solutions $(x,y,z)$ with $y>z>x$ . Thus, Jeśmanowicz’ conjecture is true if $f=2^rs^2$ and $g=1$ , where r, s are positive integers satisfying $(**)$ .

Let $a$, $b$, and $c$ be primitive Pythagorean numbers such that ${{a}^{2}}\,+\,{{b}^{2}}\,=\,{{c}^{2}}$ with $b$ even. In this paper, we show that if ${{b}_{0}}\,\equiv \,\in \,\,\,\left( \bmod \,a \right)$ with $\text{ }\!\!\varepsilon\!\!\text{ }\,\in \,\left\{ \pm 1 \right\}$ for certain positive divisors ${{b}_{0}}$ of $b$, then the Diophantine equation ${{a}^{x}}\,+\,{{b}^{y}}\,=\,{{c}^{z}}$ has only the positive solution $\left( x,\,y,\,z \right)\,=\,\left( 2,\,2,\,2 \right)$.