Let be a prime number and let be an integer with . Prove that there exist integers and with and
if and only if is not a divisor of .
(For a real number, let denote the greatest integer less than or equal to , and let denote the fractional part of .)
Solutions — 2
Solution 1
First suppose that is a divisor of ; write . As varies among , takes the values once each in some order. The possible values with are precisely . From the fact that , we realize that the values occur for
(which are all between 0 and ), and so the values occur for
respectively. From this it is clear that and cannot exist as requested.
Conversely, suppose that is not a divisor of . Put ; then is the smallest positive integer such that , and in fact . However, we cannot have or else , contradicting our hypothesis that does not divide . Hence the unique for which has the desired properties (since the fact that forces , but ).
Solution 2
We prove the contrapositive statement:
Let be a prime number and let be an integer with . Prove that the following statements are equivalent:
(a) is a divisor of ;
(b) if integers and are such that , , and
then .
Since is prime and , is relatively prime to and
Hence for .
Statement (b) holds if and only . For , , or . Since , by (1), we have . We conclude that (b) holds if and only if form an arithmetic progression with common difference . Clearly , so for some . Then because and are both positive and less than , so . This proves (a).
Conversely, if (a) holds, then and . Hence for . Thus form an arithmetic progression with common difference . Hence (b) holds.