Friday, October 26, 2018

Basic theory about divisibility and modular arithmetic




I am awfully bad with number theory so if one can provide a quick solution of this, it will be very much appreciated!



Prove that if p is a prime with p1(mod4) then there is an integer m such that p divides m2+1


Answer



I will assume that you know Wilson's Theorem, which says that if p is prime, then (p1)!1(modp).



Let m=(p12)2. We show that if p1(mod4), then m21(modp). This implies that p divides m2+1.



The idea is to pair 1 with p1, 2 with p2, 3 with p3, and so on until at the end we pair p12 with p+12. To follow the argument, you may want to work with a specific prime, such as p=13. So we pair 1 with 12, 2 with 11, 3 with 10, 4 with 9, 5 with 8, and finally 6 with 7.




Thus for any a from 1 to p12, we pair a with pa. Note that a(pa)a2(modp).



So the product of all the numbers from 1 to p1 is congruent modulo p to the product
(12)(22)(32)((p12)2).
This is congruent to
(1)p12m2.
But p1 is divisible by 4, so p12 is even, and therefore our product is congruent to m2.



But our product is congruent to (p1)!, and therefore, by Wilson's Theorem, it is congruent to 1.




We conclude that m21(modp), which is what we wanted to show.


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