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 June 7th, 2017, 06:32 AM #1 Math Team     Joined: Jul 2011 From: North America, 42nd parallel Posts: 3,277 Thanks: 205 Elementary Number Theory question Show that $\ \ 7 \ \$ does not divide $\ \ n^2 + 1 \ \$ for any integer $\ \ n \ \$ Thanks from greg1313
 June 8th, 2017, 04:40 AM #2 Math Team     Joined: Jul 2011 From: North America, 42nd parallel Posts: 3,277 Thanks: 205 Hint: A possible approach is to use the theory of congruences Of interest may be the following sequence in the Online Encyclopedia Of Integer Sequences https://oeis.org/A192450
June 8th, 2017, 05:52 AM   #3
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Quote:
 Originally Posted by agentredlum Show that $\ \ 7 \ \$ does not divide $\ \ n^2 + 1 \ \$ for any integer $\ \ n \ \$
Maybe something like this.

In mod 7, $\displaystyle n$ must be in $\displaystyle \{0,1,2,3,4,5,6\}$

So $\displaystyle n^2$ must be in $\displaystyle \{0,1,2,4\}$

Thus, $\displaystyle n^2+1$ must be in $\displaystyle \{1,2,3,5\}$

Therefore, $\displaystyle n^2+1$ is never 0 mod 7.

 June 8th, 2017, 07:22 AM #4 Math Team     Joined: Jul 2011 From: North America, 42nd parallel Posts: 3,277 Thanks: 205 Yes, very good. A clear and precise explanation. Did you look at the oeis link? It looks like 83 out of the first 108 natural numbers do not divide $\ \ n^2 + 1 \ \$ which is surprising to me. What are your thoughts about that? Last edited by skipjack; June 9th, 2017 at 01:31 AM.
June 9th, 2017, 01:54 PM   #5
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Quote:
 Originally Posted by agentredlum Yes, very good. A clear and precise explanation. Did you look at the oeis link? It looks like 83 out of the first 108 natural numbers do not divide $\ \ n^2 + 1 \ \$ which is surprising to me. What are your thoughts about that?
I think you're wondering why there are so many numbers n such that -1 is not a square mod n (as opposed to the number of n such that -1 is a square mod n). Here's a sketch of an explanation. Please post again if you'd like to see more details.

The condition on n is equivalent to the congruence

$x^2 \equiv -1 \pmod{n}$

not having a solution for $x$ (We also say that -1 is a quadratic non-residue mod n.). Write n in its canonical prime decomposition:

$n=2^{a_1}3^{a_2} \cdots p_k^{a_k}$

For the purpose of this explanation, disregard 2 if it divides n. As is often the case, 2 has to be handled separately. Then it's known that the preceding congruence has a solution if and only if each of the congruences

$x^2 \equiv -1 \pmod{p_i}$

has a solution. It's known that

$x^2 \equiv -1 \pmod{p}$

(where p is an odd prime) has a solution if $p \equiv 1 \pmod{4}$ and does not have a solution if $p \equiv 3 \pmod{4}$.

We conclude that the original congruence does not have a solution if just one of the ${p_i}\equiv 3 \pmod{4}$. Conversely, the original congruence has a solution only if all the ${p_i} \equiv 1 \pmod{4}$. Evidently, there are more of the former than the latter.

 June 10th, 2017, 04:03 AM #6 Math Team     Joined: Jul 2011 From: North America, 42nd parallel Posts: 3,277 Thanks: 205 Thank you for your nice reply. I did not know that there must be a solution for all $\ \ p_i \ \$ of the prime factorization of the divisor. Very interesting ... so if the divisor contains at least one prime of the form $\ \ 4r + 3 \ \$ then it will not divide $\ \ n^2 + 1 \ \$ On the flipside ... a natural number like $\ \ 2 \times 5 \times 13 = 130 \ \$ is sure to divide $\ \ n^2 + 1 \ \$ because all the prime factors of $130 \ \$ divide $\ \ n^2 + 1 \ \$ Is that right? Please feel free to post any other details you see fit. Last edited by agentredlum; June 10th, 2017 at 04:18 AM.
 June 11th, 2017, 09:49 AM #7 Senior Member   Joined: Nov 2010 From: Berkeley, CA Posts: 172 Thanks: 32 Math Focus: Elementary Number Theory, Algebraic NT, Analytic NT Yes, your statements are correct. For more details on moving back and forth between congruences whose moduli are a single prime, to moduli that are multiple powers of a prime and to the general case, see this link.
 June 11th, 2017, 01:21 PM #8 Math Team     Joined: Jul 2011 From: North America, 42nd parallel Posts: 3,277 Thanks: 205 The link does not work in my browser
 June 11th, 2017, 03:17 PM #9 Senior Member   Joined: Nov 2010 From: Berkeley, CA Posts: 172 Thanks: 32 Math Focus: Elementary Number Theory, Algebraic NT, Analytic NT Does this link work? https://www.johndcook.com/blog/quadratic_congruences/ If not, what error message, if any, do you get?
June 12th, 2017, 06:55 AM   #10
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Quote:
 Originally Posted by Petek Does this link work? https://www.johndcook.com/blog/quadratic_congruences/ If not, what error message, if any, do you get?
This link is also non functional in my browser.

I do not own a working computer, using a PS3. The error is probably resulting from the PS3 browser's inability to decode Adobe but this is speculation on my part. This has been going on for many years , 10 years at least and I'm not the only one with this problem.

The error is ...

The page cannot be displayed. (80710a06)

ty for your concern in this matter

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