LA HABITACIÓN DE FERMAT

Juan Azcue, Laura García, Javier San Martín, Estíbaliz Apellániz

November 2021

Exercise 1
Write a little bit about the history of this open problem.

The Goldbach’s conjecture is one of the most famous unsolved problems in number theory.
It was first proposed in 1742, when mathematician Christian Goldbach wrote a letter to the
Leonhard Euler. He proposed the following:

"Every integer greater than 2 can be written as the sum of three primes."

We must take into account that Goldbach considered 1 to be a prime number. Otherwise,
Goldbach’s conjecture would be written like this:

"Every integer greater than 5 can be written as the sum of three primes."

Euler was interested in the problem and therefore, he answered with an equivalent version of
the conjecture, although he was unable to prove it:

“Every even integer greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two primes”.

To this day, it has been shown that for the first 4·108 numbers the conjecture holds. Unfor-
tunately, it remains unproven although similar conjectures have already been proven true. For
instance, we know that Goldbach’s weak conjecture, which states that "every odd integer greater
than 5 can be written as the sum of three primes" is true.

Exercise 2
How many ways are there to express a natural number as the sum of two integers
such that:

a) Both are positive and even.

Let n, a, b ∈ N st a and b are even and n = a + b

i) if n is odd or n = 2, there is no way to express n as the sum of two even positive numbers

ii) Otherwise, n is even and greater than 2. The number of ways in which a natural even

number can be expressed is: jnk

+1
22
We have to take into account only even numbers, this is why we must divide once by two.
But then, we only go through half of the even numbers since the complementary of each sum
will be the same sum.The 1 we add represents the number n plus 0.

1
 b) The first one is even and the second one is multiple of 3 and both positive.

We must distinguish two cases, when:

n|2 ≡ 0 (mod 2) in this case there are

jnk
+1
6
ways to express number n. This is because, both, a and b must be even, since we are adding
to form an even number. a must then be multiple of six, since it must be even and multiple
of three, so b will just be n-a, the even number left. This means we must find the number of
numbers smaller than n and multiples of 6, the added 1 is for n+0.

And when:

n|2 ≡ 1 (mod 2) in this case there are

& '
n
3
+1
2

ways to express number n. In this case, for n to be odd, a must be even and b must be
odd. In order to find the number of multiples of three we divide by three and take the floor
function. Then, we must only take the even numbers that are multiple of three, this is, half
of them. And since, even numbers start by an even multiple of three, itself, we take the
ceiling function
c) And if both can be negative? Solve the two previous questions

For both cases if one of the integers can be negative, there are infinite possibilities with this
characteristics.
d) For each case, how many ways are there to decompose 16?

i Both are positive and even:  

16
+1=4+1=5
22
The cases are: 16 + 0; 2 + 14; 4 + 12; 6 + 10; 8 + 8
ii The first one is even and the second one is multiple of three:
 
16
+1=2+1
6
The cases are: 0 + 16 + 0; 6 + 10; 4 + 12;

Exercise 3
n


Let p be a prime number and n a natural number. Prove that p is divisible by p if
j k
and only if np is divisible by p.

n(n−1)...(n−p+1)
Let us write n
,
and note that the numerator consists of factors of the form


p = p! j k
n−i, where i ranges over the non negative integers strictly less than p. We know that n = np p+r
j k
with 0 ≤ r < p. Therefore, n − r = np ∗ p occurs in the numerator. Because the remainder in

n(n−1)...⌊ np ⌋...(n−p+1)
euclidean division is unique, no other factor is a multiple of p. Now, if np = (p−1)!

2
 j k
is divisible by p, n(n − 1)... np ...(n − p + 1) must be divisible by p, and, conversely, if the latter is
divisible by p, given that

the denominator is coprime with p (being a product of numbers less than
p and p a prime) , np will be also divisible by p (no ’p’ of the numerator can be canceled out with
j k j k
a ’p’ of the denominator). But n(n − 1)... np ...(n − p + 1) is made of np and other factors that
j k
(we know for sure) are not divisible by p. Hence np is divisible by p if and only if np is divisible

by p, QED.

Exercise 4
a) Is 1 a prime number?
No, It‘s not

b) How much is ø(1)? Why?

Is defined as 1, this follows the logic that it‘s not a prime as ø of a prime is equal to the
prime minus one.

c) When are two numbers coprime (relatively prime)?

m,n are said coprime if GCD(m,n)=1, same as not having any prime in common in their
prime decomposition.

d) Show that if m and n are coprime then ø(mn)= ø(m) ø(n).

jm
Y
m= pm
i
i

i=1

jn
Y
n= pm
i
i

i=1
jn
Y jm
Y
n∗m= pm
i
i
· pm
i
i

i=1 i=1

As m and n don’t have any common prime the decomposition of m*n is precisely the combi-
nation of both of them together
jn jn jm
Y 1 Y 1 Y 1
ϕmn = m · n 1− · 1− 1−
i=1
pi i=1 pi i=1 pi

jm jn
Y 1 Y 1
=m 1− ·n 1− = ϕn · ϕm
i=1
pi i=1
pi

We just divided the product in the primes that corresponds to m and the ones that corre-
sponds to n.

3
Exercise 5
P
For an arbitrary natural number n, prove that d|n ∅(d) = n (the sum is over all
the natural numbers d that divide n).

i) If n = pm , where p is a prime number,

m m m m−1
X X X 1 X X pm − 1
∅(d) = ∅(pk ) = 1+ (pk (1− )) = 1+(p−1) pk−1 = 1+(p−1) pk = 1+(p−1) =
p p−1
d|n k=0 k=1 k=1 k=0

= 1 + pm − 1 = pm

ii) Let’s suppose it’s true for n and see that it is true for npm , where p is a prime number, n
is not divisible by p, and m ∈ N.

X X m
X
∅(d) = (∅(d) + ∅(dpk )) =
d|npm d|n k=1

m
X X 1
= (∅(d) + (pk (1 − )∅(d))) =
p
d|n k=1

X m
X
= (∅(d) + (pk−1 (p − 1)∅(d))) =
d|n k=1

X m−1
X
= (∅(d) + (p − 1)∅(d) (pk )) =
d|n k=0

X pm − 1
= (∅(d) + (p − 1) ∅(d)) =
p−1
d|n
X
= (∅(d) + (pm − 1)∅(d)) =
d|n
X X
= (pm )∅(d) = (pm ) ∅(d) = npm
d|n d|n