Let and be positive integers, , let be an -element ring, and let be an element of such that is invertible for each . Show that is nilpotent (i.e., for some positive integer ).
Solution
Since is nilpotent, we will assume in the sequel that .
Given a positive integer , notice that is divisible by for some positive integer ; write . Since is invertible, and , it follows that is invertible.
Next, write , where we agree that , to deduce that is invertible for each positive integer and is invertible.
If the were pairwise distinct, then by a cardinality argument would be an -element skew field, so , that is , which is impossible since and are invertible.
Consequently, for some indices , so which implies , since is invertible.
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