Saturday, 7 April 2018

elementary number theory - Fermat's little theorem



This is a very interesting word problem that I came across in an old textbook of mine. So I mused over this problem for a while and tried to look at the different ways to approach it but unfortunately I was confused by the problem and I don't really understand how to do it either, hence I am unable to show my own working or opinion. The textbook gave a hint about using Fermat's little theorem but I don't really understand it and I'm really not sure about how to approach it. Any guidance hints or help would be truly greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance :) So anyway, here the problem goes: (It is composed of three parts)




a) Determine the remainder when 22017+1 is divided by 17.



b) Prove that 3099+61100 is divisible by 31.




c) It is known that numbers p and 8p2+1 are primes. Find p.



Answer



In problem (a), use Fermat's little theorem, which says (or a rather, a very slightly different version says) that for any prime number p, and any integer n that's not divisible by p, we have
np11mod
In particular, use n=2 and p=17. Keep in mind that 2017=(126\times 16)+1.



In problem (b), note that 30\equiv 61\equiv -1\bmod 31 (you don't even have to use Fermat's little theorem here).



In problem (c), use Andre's hint above: if p is any prime number other than 3, then p^2\equiv 1\bmod 3 (which you can see is an application of Fermat's little theorem). What does that mean 8p^2 is congruent to modulo 3? What does that mean 8p^2+1 is congruent to modulo 3? Can a prime number be congruent to that modulo 3?



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