Sunday, February 7, 2016

elementary number theory - If pnot=5 is an odd prime, prove that either p2+1 or p21 is divisible by 10?


I was able to find a solution to this problem, but only by using a couple extra tools that are later in the book1. So far the book only covered basic divisibility, gcd, and the fundamental theorem of arithmetic; it did not cover modular arithmetic, and altough we did cover the division algorithm, we did not cover divisibility rules (i.e. if a number ends in 5 or 0, then it is divisible by 5). Is there any way of proving this with only the above tools? (I will point out what I used from future chapters in my solution)


My Solution


Suppose 10p21=(p+1)(p1). Then 5(p+1) and 5(p1).


Odd primes can only have last digits of 1,3,7,9 (I used the divisibility rule that a number ending in 0 or 5 is divisible by 5, which is in the next chapter). Since 5(p+1) and 5(p1), the last digit of p is either 3 or 7. If we write p as 10n+3 or 10n+7, then square and add 1, we get a multiple of 10. (The fact that any integer with a last digit of k can be written as 10n+k is also something from a future chapter)



Elemntary Nuber Theory by David Burton 6th ed., Section 3.1 # 10


Answer



If p5 is an odd prime, its square p2 is also odd, thus p21 and p2+1 are both even.



Now, since an odd prime p5 must (as you mention in your post) be: p1,3,7 or 9mod10 its square will be p21,1,1 or 1mod10 which answers your question.


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