Friday, 25 March 2016

elementary number theory - Solving Non-Linear Congruences




I'm trying to solve an exercise from Niven I.M "An Introduction to Theory of Numbers" on page 106, problem 10. The problem wants you to find all the solutions to the congruence x1216(mod 17)
Here is my attempt;



First I found that 3 is a primitive root in (mod17), i.e 3161(mod 17).



This means that we can write 1638(mod 17). So we have x1238(mod 17)
Then multiplying the congruence by 316 we see that
x12324(mod 17)
We see that x=9 is a solution because 9=32.



To find the remaining solution I think we need to have x1238+16k(mod 17)

for kZ/17Z.



So we need 12|(8+16k).
However, I'm not sure about my last argument that 12|(8+16k). Is it right or wrong?
Any help is appreciated.


Answer



k would be in Z . You can Also note both 12 and 16k+8 divide by 4. This means, 3 would need to divide 4k+2. Using mod 3, we get k congruent to 1 mod 3. k=1 gives a cube root of 9. k=4 gives 15, k=7 gives 8, and k=10 gives 2. You intuition works, but your reduction could have gone further.


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