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How To Prove It A Structured Approach - (Introduction)

The document introduces the concepts of high school and college mathematics, emphasizing the role of deductive reasoning and proofs in solving mathematical problems. It discusses conjectures related to prime numbers and presents a proof of a specific conjecture, demonstrating the process of mathematical reasoning. Additionally, it touches on Mersenne primes and perfect numbers, highlighting the ongoing mathematical inquiries surrounding these topics.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
50 views7 pages

How To Prove It A Structured Approach - (Introduction)

The document introduces the concepts of high school and college mathematics, emphasizing the role of deductive reasoning and proofs in solving mathematical problems. It discusses conjectures related to prime numbers and presents a proof of a specific conjecture, demonstrating the process of mathematical reasoning. Additionally, it touches on Mersenne primes and perfect numbers, highlighting the ongoing mathematical inquiries surrounding these topics.

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Introduction

What is mathematics? High school mathematics is concerned mostly with


solving equations and computing answers to numerical questions. College
mathematics deals with a wider variety of questions, involving not only
numbers, but also sets, functions, and other mathematical objects. What
ties them together is the use of deductive reasoning to find the answers to
questions. When you solve an equation for x you are using the information
given by the equation to deduce what the value of x must be. Similarly, when
mathematicians solve other kinds of mathematical problems, they always
justify their conclusions with deductive reasoning.
Deductive reasoning in mathematics is usually presented in the form of a
proof. One of the main purposes of this book is to help you develop your
mathematical reasoning ability in general, and in particular your ability to
read and write proofs. In later chapters we’ll study how proofs are constructed
in detail, but first let’s take a look at a few examples of proofs.
Don’t worry if you have trouble understanding these proofs. They’re just
intended to give you a taste of what mathematical proofs are like. In some
cases you may be able to follow many of the steps of the proof, but you may be
Copyright © 2019. Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved.

puzzled about why the steps are combined in the way they are, or how anyone
could have thought of the proof. If so, we ask you to be patient. Many of these
questions will be answered later in this book, particularly in Chapter 3.
All of our examples of proofs in this introduction will involve prime
numbers. Recall that an integer larger than 1 is said to be prime if it cannot be
written as a product of two smaller positive integers. If it can be written as a
product of two smaller positive integers, then it is composite. For example, 6
is a composite number, since 6 = 2 · 3, but 7 is a prime number.
Before we can give an example of a proof involving prime numbers, we
need to find something to prove – some fact about prime numbers whose
correctness can be verified with a proof. Sometimes you can find interesting

Velleman, Daniel J.. How to Prove It : A Structured Approach, Cambridge University Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central,
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2 Introduction
n Is n prime? 2n − 1 Is 2n − 1 prime?
2 yes 3 yes
3 yes 7 yes
4 no: 4 = 2 · 2 15 no: 15 = 3 · 5
5 yes 31 yes
6 no: 6 = 2 · 3 63 no: 63 = 7 · 9
7 yes 127 yes
8 no: 8 = 2 · 4 255 no: 255 = 15 · 17
9 no: 9 = 3 · 3 511 no: 511 = 7 · 73
10 no: 10 = 2 · 5 1023 no: 1023 = 31 · 33
Figure I.1.

patterns in mathematics just by trying out a calculation on a few numbers. For


example, consider the table in Figure I.1. For each integer n from 2 to 10,
the table shows whether or not both n and 2n − 1 are prime, and a surprising
pattern emerges. It appears that 2n − 1 is prime in precisely those cases in
which n is prime!
Will this pattern continue? It is tempting to guess that it will, but this is
only a guess. Mathematicians call such guesses conjectures. Thus, we have
the following two conjectures:
Conjecture 1. Suppose n is an integer larger than 1 and n is prime. Then
2n − 1 is prime.
Conjecture 2. Suppose n is an integer larger than 1 and n is not prime. Then
2n − 1 is not prime.
Unfortunately, if we continue the table in Figure I.1, we immediately
find that Conjecture 1 is incorrect. It is easy to check that 11 is prime, but
211 −1 = 2047 = 23·89, so 211 −1 is composite. Thus, 11 is a counterexample
Copyright © 2019. Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved.

to Conjecture 1. The existence of even one counterexample establishes that


the conjecture is incorrect, but it is interesting to note that in this case there
are many counterexamples. If we continue checking numbers up to 30, we
find two more counterexamples to Conjecture 1: both 23 and 29 are prime,
but 223 − 1 = 8,388,607 = 47 · 178,481 and 229 − 1 = 536,870,911 =
2,089 · 256,999. However, no number up to 30 is a counterexample to
Conjecture 2.
Do you think that Conjecture 2 is correct? Having found counterexamples
to Conjecture 1, we know that this conjecture is incorrect, but our failure to
find a counterexample to Conjecture 2 does not show that it is correct. Perhaps
there are counterexamples, but the smallest one is larger than 30. Continuing
to check examples might uncover a counterexample, or, if it doesn’t, it might

Velleman, Daniel J.. How to Prove It : A Structured Approach, Cambridge University Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central,
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Introduction 3
increase our confidence in the conjecture. But we can never be sure that
the conjecture is correct if we only check examples. No matter how many
examples we check, there is always the possibility that the next one will be the
first counterexample. The only way we can be sure that Conjecture 2 is correct
is to prove it.
In fact, Conjecture 2 is correct. Here is a proof of the conjecture:
Proof of Conjecture 2. Since n is not prime, there are positive integers a and
b such that a < n, b < n, and n = ab. Let x = 2b − 1 and y = 1 + 2b + 22b
+ · · · + 2(a−1)b . Then

xy = (2b − 1) · (1 + 2b + 22b + · · · + 2(a−1)b )


= 2b · (1 + 2b + 22b + · · · + 2(a−1)b ) − (1 + 2b + 22b + · · · + 2(a−1)b )
= (2b + 22b + 23b + · · · + 2ab ) − (1 + 2b + 22b + · · · + 2(a−1)b )
= 2ab − 1
= 2n − 1.

Since b < n, we can conclude that x = 2b − 1 < 2n − 1. Also, since


ab = n > a, it follows that b > 1. Therefore, x = 2b − 1 > 21 − 1 = 1,
so y < xy = 2n − 1. Thus, we have shown that 2n − 1 can be written as the
product of two positive integers x and y, both of which are smaller than 2n −1,
so 2n − 1 is not prime. 
Now that the conjecture has been proven, we can call it a theorem. Don’t
worry if you find the proof somewhat mysterious. We’ll return to it again at
the end of Chapter 3 to analyze how it was constructed. For the moment, the
most important point to understand is that if n is any integer larger than 1
that can be written as a product of two smaller positive integers a and b, then
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the proof gives a method (admittedly, a somewhat mysterious one) of writing


2n − 1 as a product of two smaller positive integers x and y. Thus, if n is not
prime, then 2n − 1 must also not be prime. For example, suppose n = 12,
so 2n − 1 = 4095. Since 12 = 3 · 4, we could take a = 3 and b = 4 in
the proof. Then according to the formulas for x and y given in the proof, we
would have x = 2b − 1 = 24 − 1 = 15 and y = 1 + 2b + 22b + · · · + 2(a−1)b =
1 + 24 + 28 = 273. And, just as the formulas in the proof predict, we have
xy = 15 · 273 = 4095 = 2n − 1. Of course, there are other ways of factoring
12 into a product of two smaller integers, and these might lead to other ways of
factoring 4095. For example, since 12 = 2 · 6, we could use the values a = 2
and b = 6. Try computing the corresponding values of x and y and make sure
their product is 4095.

Velleman, Daniel J.. How to Prove It : A Structured Approach, Cambridge University Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central,
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4 Introduction
Although we already know that Conjecture 1 is incorrect, there are still
interesting questions we can ask about it. If we continue checking prime
numbers n to see if 2n − 1 is prime, will we continue to find counterexamples
to the conjecture – examples for which 2n − 1 is not prime? Will we continue
to find examples for which 2n − 1 is prime? If there were only finitely many
prime numbers, then we might be able to investigate these questions by simply
checking 2n −1 for every prime number n. But in fact there are infinitely many
prime numbers. Euclid (circa 300 BCE) gave a proof of this fact in Book IX
of his Elements. His proof is one of the most famous in all of mathematics:1
Theorem 3. There are infinitely many prime numbers.
Proof. Suppose there are only finitely many prime numbers. Let p1 , p2 , . . . ,
pn be a list of all prime numbers. Let m = p1 p2 · · · pn + 1. Note that m is not
divisible by p1 , since dividing m by p1 gives a quotient of p2 p3 · · · pn and a
remainder of 1. Similarly, m is not divisible by any of p2 , p3 , . . . , pn .
We now use the fact that every integer larger than 1 is either prime or can
be written as a product of two or more primes. (We’ll see a proof of this fact
in Chapter 6 – see Theorem 6.4.2.) Clearly m is larger than 1, so m is either
prime or a product of primes. Suppose first that m is prime. Note that m is
larger than all of the numbers in the list p1 , p2 , . . . , pn , so we’ve found a
prime number not in this list. But this contradicts our assumption that this was
a list of all prime numbers.
Now suppose m is a product of primes. Let q be one of the primes in this
product. Then m is divisible by q. But we’ve already seen that m is not divis-
ible by any of the numbers in the list p1 , p2 , . . . , pn , so once again we have a
contradiction with the assumption that this list included all prime numbers.
Since the assumption that there are finitely many prime numbers has led to
a contradiction, there must be infinitely many prime numbers. 
Once again, you should not be concerned if some aspects of this proof
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seem mysterious. After you’ve read Chapter 3 you’ll be better prepared to


understand the proof in detail. We’ll return to this proof then and analyze its
structure.
We have seen that if n is not prime then 2n − 1 cannot be prime, but if
n is prime then 2n − 1 can be either prime or composite. Because there are
infinitely many prime numbers, there are infinitely many numbers of the form
2n − 1 that, based on what we know so far, might be prime. But how many of
them are prime?

1 Euclid phrased the theorem and proof somewhat differently. We have chosen to take a more
modern approach in our presentation.

Velleman, Daniel J.. How to Prove It : A Structured Approach, Cambridge University Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central,
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Introduction 5
Prime numbers of the form − 1 are called Mersenne primes, after Father
2n
Marin Mersenne (1588–1648), a French monk and scholar who studied these
numbers. Although many Mersenne primes have been found, it is still not
known if there are infinitely many of them. Many of the largest known prime
numbers are Mersenne primes. As of this writing (February 2019), the largest
known prime number is the Mersenne prime 282,589,933 − 1, a number with
24,862,048 digits.
Mersenne primes are related to perfect numbers, the subject of another
famous unsolved problem of mathematics. A positive integer n is said to be
perfect if n is equal to the sum of all positive integers smaller than n that divide
n. (For any two integers m and n, we say that m divides n if n is divisible by
m; in other words, if there is an integer q such that n = qm.) For example,
the only positive integers smaller than 6 that divide 6 are 1, 2, and 3, and
1+2+3 = 6. Thus, 6 is a perfect number. The next smallest perfect number is
28. (You should check for yourself that 28 is perfect by finding all the positive
integers smaller than 28 that divide 28 and adding them up.)
Euclid proved that if 2n − 1 is prime, then 2n−1 (2n − 1) is perfect. Thus,
every Mersenne prime gives rise to a perfect number. Furthermore, about 2000
years after Euclid’s proof, the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler (1707–
1783), the most prolific mathematician in history, proved that every even
perfect number arises in this way. (For example, note that 6 = 21 (22 − 1)
and 28 = 22 (23 − 1).) Because it is not known if there are infinitely many
Mersenne primes, it is also not known if there are infinitely many even perfect
numbers. It is also not known if there are any odd perfect numbers. For proofs
of the theorems of Euclid and Euler, see exercises 18 and 19 in Section 7.4.
Although there are infinitely many prime numbers, the primes thin out as we
look at larger and larger numbers. For example, there are 25 primes between
1 and 100, 16 primes between 1001 and 1100, and only six primes between
1,000,001 and 1,000,100. As our last introductory example of a proof, we
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show that there are long stretches of consecutive positive integers containing
no primes at all. In this proof, we’ll use the following terminology: for any
positive integer n, the product of all integers from 1 to n is called n factorial
and is denoted n!. Thus, n! = 1 · 2 · 3 · · · n. As with our previous two proofs,
we’ll return to this proof at the end of Chapter 3 to analyze its structure.
Theorem 4. For every positive integer n, there is a sequence of n consecutive
positive integers containing no primes.
Proof. Suppose n is a positive integer. Let x = (n + 1)! +2. We will show that
none of the numbers x, x + 1, x + 2, . . . , x + (n − 1) is prime. Since this is a
sequence of n consecutive positive integers, this will prove the theorem.

Velleman, Daniel J.. How to Prove It : A Structured Approach, Cambridge University Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central,
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6 Introduction
To see that x is not prime, note that

x = 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · · · (n + 1) + 2
= 2 · (1 · 3 · 4 · · · (n + 1) + 1).

Thus, x can be written as a product of two smaller positive integers, so x is


not prime.
Similarly, we have

x + 1 = 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · · · (n + 1) + 3
= 3 · (1 · 2 · 4 · · · (n + 1) + 1),

so x + 1 is also not prime. In general, consider any number x + i, where


0 ≤ i ≤ n − 1. Then we have

x + i = 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · · · (n + 1) + (i + 2)
= (i + 2) · (1 · 2 · 3 · · · (i + 1) · (i + 3) · · · (n + 1) + 1),

so x + i is not prime. 
Theorem 4 shows that there are sometimes long stretches between one
prime and the next prime. But primes also sometimes occur close together.
Since 2 is the only even prime number, the only pair of consecutive integers
that are both prime is 2 and 3. But there are lots of pairs of primes that differ
by only two, for example, 5 and 7, 29 and 31, and 7949 and 7951. Such pairs
of primes are called twin primes. It is not known whether there are infinitely
many twin primes.
Recently, significant progress has been made on the twin primes question.
In 2013, Yitang Zhang (1955–) proved that there is a positive integer d ≤
70,000,000 such that there are infinitely many pairs of prime numbers that
differ by d. Work of many other mathematicians in 2013–14 narrowed down
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the possibilities for d to d ≤ 246. Of course, if the statement holds with d = 2


then there are infinitely many twin primes.

Exercises

Note: Solutions or hints for exercises marked with an asterisk (*) are given in
the appendix.

*1. (a) Factor 215 − 1 = 32,767 into a product of two smaller positive
integers.

Velleman, Daniel J.. How to Prove It : A Structured Approach, Cambridge University Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central,
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Introduction 7
(b) Find an integer x such that 1 < x < − 1 and232,767 − 1 is 232,767
divisible by x.
2. Make some conjectures about the values of n for which 3n − 1 is prime or
the values of n for which 3n − 2n is prime. (You might start by making a
table similar to Figure I.1.)
*3. The proof of Theorem 3 gives a method for finding a prime number
different from any in a given list of prime numbers.
(a) Use this method to find a prime different from 2, 3, 5, and 7.
(b) Use this method to find a prime different from 2, 5, and 11.
4. Find five consecutive integers that are not prime.
5. Use the table in Figure I.1 and the discussion on p. 5 to find two more
perfect numbers.
6. The sequence 3, 5, 7 is a list of three prime numbers such that each pair
of adjacent numbers in the list differ by two. Are there any more such
“triplet primes”?
7. A pair of distinct positive integers (m, n) is called amicable if the sum of
all positive integers smaller than n that divide n is m, and the sum of all
positive integers smaller than m that divide m is n. Show that (220, 284)
is amicable.
Copyright © 2019. Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved.

Velleman, Daniel J.. How to Prove It : A Structured Approach, Cambridge University Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/city/detail.action?docID=31853854.
Created from city on 2025-08-06 16:42:27.

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