fundamental theorem of arithmetic
factorization motivator If p is prime and p | ab, then p|a or p|b.
If p|a, we are done.
Consider the case where p|ab yet a is not divisible by p. Then, a and p are coprime. This means that, we have:
We note that:
Notice that both of these elements are divisible by p (p|ab and of course p|p). Therefore, p|b as desired.
statement of the theorem Every integer greater than 1 is a prime or a product of primes. This factorization is unique.
Proof Existence Let S be the list of integers bigger than 1 which are prime or are products of primes. Consider the set T which is all integers bigger than 1 which isn’t prime or are products of primes:
We desire T to be empty.
Assume for the sake of contradiction that T isn’t empty. By WOP, take some smallest element of t \in T.
t is not in S, so it mustn’t be prime. This means:
Though…. a and b must be smaller than t (otherwise their product wouldn’t make t, as we are working with only positive numbers (integers greater than 1) here). So a and b must be in S—meaning they are primes or product of primes. This makes t a prime or product of primes, reaching contradiction.
Uniqueness We show this by induction. We see that: 2 = 2. Now, suppose a unique prime factorization holds for all integers smaller than n. Let:
Let us order it such that p_1 \leq … \leq p_{r}, q_1 \leq … \leq q_{s}.
By the factorization motivator, each p_{j}|n implies that p_{j}|q_{i} (you can see this by treating n = q_1 … q_{s}, so p_{j}|n \implies p_{j}|(q_1 \cdot \dots \cdot q_{s}) so p_{j} should be divisible by some q_{j}.)
Now, this condition implies p_{j} = q_{i}, because primes are not divisible by anything except themselves and 1 (and 1 is not considered prime).
Consider, then, two such equivalences:
Now, this means that:
Therefore, the only way this can work (the fact that q_1 is sandwiched on both ends — by p_1\leq q_1 \leq p_1) is that p_1 = q_1.
Therefore, we now have:
You will note \frac{n}{p_1} < n. Now, we can invoke induction. \blacksquare