Update: If this question is of interest, you can also click here.
Update: Using Bill Dubuque's lemma and logic proving Euclid's lemma, we can supply an elementary proof.
To get a contradiction, assume than p∣ab.
Let S={n∈N|p∣nb}. Then p∈S and a∈S. Moreover, S is closed under subtraction.
Let d=min(S). By the lemma, d∣p, so d=1 or d=p.
If d=1, since d∈S, it must follow that p∣(1×b), which is absurd since b<p.
By the lemma, d∣a, so if d=p then p∣a, which is absurd since a<p.
I've been motivated (see this) to prove the following result using only elementary techniques.
Let p be a prime greater than 2.
Let 1<a<p
Let 1<b<p
Then
p∤
I think that this is as simple as first showing that
\text{For every integer n } \ge 1 \text{ such that } p\nmid n, \; \; p\nmid na
and ironing out some details.
Using only the 'first page' of elementary theory of the natural numbers/integers (for example Euclidean division, the construction of \Bbb Z, the existence of prime factorizations and that modular arithmetic is well-defined), can this approach work for proving \text{(1)}?
Besides answering yes in the comments, a proof would be appreciated (this elementary approach can be exhausting).
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