Department of Mathematics

MAL 180: Discrete Mathematical Structures

Problems on Number Theory

1. Find all integers x, y, z such that 6x + 10y + 15z = 1.

2. Let g and ` be given positive integers. Prove that there exist integers x, y such that (x, y) = g
and [x, y] = ` if and only if g | `.

3. Let n ≥ 2 and k be any positive integers. Prove that (n − 1) | (nk − 1). More generally, if
x, y, k are integers with x 6= y and k ≥ 1, then (x − y) | (xk − y k ).

4. Let n ≥ 2 and k be any positive integers. Prove that (n−1)2 | (nk −1) if and only if (n−1) | k.

5. If a and b > 2 are any positive integers, prove that 2a + 1 is not divisible by 2b − 1.
n m
6. Prove that if m > n, then (a2 + 1) | (a2 − 1). Show that if a, m, n are positive integers with
m 6= n, then (
2m 2n 1 if a is even;
(a + 1, a + 1) =
2 if a is odd.
Deduce that there are infinitely many primes.
p p
7. Show that if (a, b) = 1 and p is an odd prime, then (a + b, aa+b
+b
) = 1 or p.


8. Show that (n + 1)! + 1, n! + 1 = 1 for each positive integer n.

9. Prove that there are infinitely many primes of the form 4n + 3 and of the form 6n + 5. Is this
also true for numbers of the form 8n + 7?

10. Prove that no polynomial f (x) of degree > 1 with integral coefficients can represent a prime
for every positive integer x.

11. Show that if m4 + 4n is prime, then m is odd and n is even, except when m = n = 1.

12. Prove that in any block of consecutive positive integers there is a unique integer divisible by
a higher power of 2 than any of the others. Hence prove that there is no integer among the
2n+1 numbers
± k1 ± k+1
1 1
± · · · ± k+n
where all possible combinations of plus and minus signs are allowed and where n, k are positive
integers.

13. If 2n + 1 is a prime for some integer n, then prove that n = 2k for some positive integer k.

14. If 2n − 1 is a prime for some integer n, then prove that n is prime.

15. Show that 7 | (32n+1 + 2n+2 ) for all n ∈ N.

16. Show that the product of three consecutive integers is always divisible by 504 if the middle
term is a cube.

17. Prove that 51 n5 + 13 n3 + 7

15 n is an integer whenever n is an integer.

18. If p is a prime, prove that (p − 1)! + 1 is a power of p if and only if and only if p ∈ {2, 3, 5}.

1
 p−1

19. Show that if p is prime and 0 ≤ k ≤ p − 1, then k ≡ (−1)k (mod p).

20. If r1 , . . . , rp and r10 , . . . , rp0 are any two complete residue systems modulo a prime p > 2, prove
that r1 r10 , . . . , rp rp0 cannot be a complete residue system modulo p.

21. Use the factorization 561 = 3 · 11 · 17 to show that n561 ≡ n (mod 561) holds for all n ∈ Z.

22. If φ(mn) = φ(m) and n > 1, prove that n = 2 and m is odd.

23. Prove that the sum of all positive integers < n and relatively prime to n is 12 nφ(n) if n > 1.

24. Find all positive integers n such that φ(n) | n.

25. Suppose that m is square-free, and that k and k are positive integers such that kk ≡ 1
(mod φ(m)). Show that akk ≡ a (mod m) for all a ∈ Z.