When is $2^n \pm 1$ a perfect power Is there an easy way of showing that $2^n \pm 1$ is never a perfect power, except for $2^3 + 1 = 3^2 $?
I know that  Catalan's conjecture (or Mihăilescu's theorem) gives the result directly, but I'm hopefully for a more elementary method.

I can show that it is never a square, except for $2^3 + 1$.
Proof: Cases $n=1, 2, 3$ are easily dealt with. Henceforth, let $n\geq4$.
$2^n -1 \equiv 3 \pmod{4}$ hence is never a square.   
If $2^n +1 =x^2$, then $2^n = (x-1)(x+1)$ and both of these are powers of 2. Thus we must have $(x-1) = 2, (x+1) = 4$. This gives the solution of $2^3 + 1 = 3^2$.

Let's now do an odd prime.
Say $2^n +1 = x^p$. Then $2^n = x^p - 1 = (x-1)(x^{p-1}+x^{p-2} + \ldots +1)$, so both terms are powers of 2. We have $ x = 2^m+1$ is odd. But the other term is the sum of $p$ odd numbers, hence is odd. Since this is clearly greater than 1, we get a contradiction.
Say $2^n -1 = x^p$. Then $2^n = x^p + 1 = (x+1)(x^{p-1} - x^{p-2} + \ldots -x +1 )$, so both terms are powers of 2. We have $x = 2^m -1$ is odd. But the other term is the sum of $p$ odd numbers, hence is odd. Since $x^p + 1 \neq x+1$ except for $p=1$, this means that the term is greater than 1. Hence we get a contradiction.

I collected everything you may need about elementary methods solving special cases of Mihailescu theorem here (see cases (iii) and (vii) for this problem)
