Exercise 5.18

Let D be a square-free integer that is also odd and positive. Show that there is an integer b prime to D such that ( b D ) = 1 .

Answers

Proof. Let D = p 1 p 2 p k , where the p i are distinct odd primes.

Let s be a nonresidue modulo p k . By the Chinese Remainder Theorem, as p i p j = 1 if i j , there exists an integer b such that

b 1 ( mod p 1 ) , b 1 ( mod p 2 ) , , b 1 ( mod p k 1 ) , b s ( mod p k ) .

Then ( b p i ) = 1 , i = 1 , 2 , k 1 , ( b p k ) = 1 , so b p i = 1 for all i = 1 , 2 , , k . Then b D = b p 1 p k = 1 , and

( b D ) = i = 1 k ( b p i ) = ( b p k ) = 1 .

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2022-07-19 00:00
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