NUMBER THEORY

BY THE SPMPS 2013 NUMBER THEORY CLASS

Abstract. This paper presents theorems proven by the Number Theory class of the
2013 Summer Program in Mathematical Problem Solving. An appendix is included with
a table giving the number of divisors of various natural numbers. The ideas in this paper
were created by Tiffany Baez, Seth Guasp, Janequa Mason, Felix Perez, Vielka Rankin,
Agustin Read, Jayden Reaves, Christian Rosado, Thalyia Thompson, and Pamela Vargas.
The paper was edited by Ben Blum-Smith.

1. Divisor Counting

Theorem 1. A number is a square if and only if it has an odd number of factors.

Proof. If the number is not a square, then the factors all come in pairs, thus there are an
even number of them.
If the number is a square, all of the factors are in pairs except the square root. So the total
number of factors is odd. 
Theorem 2. 1 is the only natural number with only one divisor.

Proof. If n 6= 1, then n has at least 2 divisors: 1 and n. 

Theorem 3. 0 is the only nonnegative integer with infinitely many divisors.

Proof. First, 0 has infinitely many divisors because every nonnegative integer is a divisor
of zero, because for all x, 0 · x = 0.
Secondly, if n 6= 0, then for any m > n, m is not a divisor of n. Therefore, all the divisors
of n lie between 1 and n. So there cannot be infinitely many. 

2. Squares

Theorem 4. The differences between consecutive square numbers are consecutive odd num-
bers. More specifically,
(n + 1)2 − n2 = n + (n + 1) = 2n + 1
1
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Proof.
(n + 1)2 = (n + 1)(n + 1)
= n2 + n + n + 1
= n2 + 2n + 1
Therefore,
(n + 1)2 − n2 = (n2 + 2n + 1) − n2 = 2n + 1


Since every odd number 3 and up has the form 2n + 1 for some natural number n, this
means every odd number 3 and up occurs as a difference of squares.
Here is a consequence of this:
Theorem 5. There are infinitely many square numbers that are the sum of two other
square numbers.

Proof. Each odd square number will eventually occur as the difference between two con-
secutive squares because all odd numbers 3 and up occur this way because of theorem 4.
In other words, if m is odd and at least 3, then m2 is odd, so that
m2 = 2n + 1
for some nonnegative integer n.
But then by the last result, (n + 1)2 − n2 = 2n + 1 = m2 , so
m2 + n2 = (n + 1)2

Since this works for any choice of odd m ≥ 3, this gives us an infinite list of squares (n+1)2
that are sums of two other squares. 

3. Primes

Theorem 6. n and n + 1 can both be prime, but only if n = 2 and n + 1 = 3.

Proof. For any choice of n, one of n or n + 1 will be even. The only even prime number
is 2. Every other even number is composite. So, if n > 2, then so is n + 1, therefore, the
even one is composite. 
Theorem 7. Except for 2 and 3, all prime numbers are 1 or 5 mod 6.
 NUMBER THEORY 3

Proof. If a number is divisible by 6, it is composite; thus no prime number is 0 mod 6. If

a number is 2 more than a multiple of 6, it is even, because all multiples of 6 are even.
The only even prime is 2. Thus a prime number cannot be 2 mod 6 unless it is actually
equal to 2. Similarly, if a number is 3 more than a multiple of 6, it is a multiple of 3, since
all multiples of 6 are multiples of 3. Since 3 is the only multiple of 3 that is prime, this
means that a prime number cannot be 3 mod 6 unless it is actually equal to 3. Finally, if
a number is 4 mod 6, then it is even for the same reason that any number that is 2 mod 6
is even, and therefore it cannot be prime.
Thus no prime number other than 2 or 3 can be equal to 0, 2, 3, or 4 mod 6. It must be
that all the prime numbers except 2 and 3 are 1 or 5 mod 6. 
Theorem 8. For any natural number n 6= 0, no number bigger than n/2 can be a factor
of n except n itself.

Proof. Suppose x ≥ n/2 but x 6= n. Then x · 2 > n because x > n/2. And x · 1 6= n
because x 6= n. And x · anything bigger than 2 > x · 2 > n. Also, x · 0 6= n because n 6= 0.
Therefore there is no number that times x is n. Therefore x is not a factor of n. 
Corollary 1 (First primality test). To check if a number n is prime, divide n by every
natural number > 1 and ≤ n/2. If each division gives a non-whole answer, then n is prime.

Proof. Theorem 8 shows that no natural number > n/2 can be a divisor of n except n
itself. If all the divisions in the test give a non-whole answer, this also shows that no
natural number from 2 to n/2 can be a divisor. This implies that the only divisors of n
can be 1 and n. Therefore n is prime. 
Theorem 9. 127 is prime.

Proof. If it were not prime, then it would be a product

127 = a · b
with a, b > 1. We checked that a, b cannot be 2 through 12 using divisibility rules. Thus
the smallest number a · b could be is 13 · 13. But this is > 127. So it is impossible for
127 = a · b with a, b > 1. Therefore 127 is prime. 
Theorem 10. 947 is prime.

Proof. As in the proof of theorem 9, if 947 were composite, it would be a product

947 = a · b
with a, b > 1. We checked divisibility of 947 by every prime number less than 30. This rules
out the possibility that a or b could be any prime number less than 30. Also, neither a nor
b could be a composite number less than 30, because if 947 were divisible by a composite
number less than 30 then it would also be divisible by the prime factors of that number
which are also less than 30 and we have ruled this out.
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This shows that 947 is not divisible by any number from 2 to 30. Thus the smallest possible
proper factorization a · b that is possible is 31 · 31. But this is 961, which is bigger than
947. So no proper factorization is possible. Thus 947 is prime. 

The method used in these proofs can be generalized to create a better primality test than
the one described in corollary 1.
Theorem 11 (Existence of factorizations). Every composite number can be expressed as
a product of two or more prime numbers.

Proof. If n is composite, it can be expressed as a product of two or more prime numbers

using a factor tree. This works because of the following reason:
If n is not zero, its factor tree will end. If the factor tree didn’t end, it would contain an
infinite sequence of divisors, each smaller than the last. Therefore n would have infinitely
many divisors. But the only nonnegative number with infinitely many divisors is zero, by
theorem 3. So if n is not zero, the factor tree must end. 
Theorem 12 (Infinitude of the primes). There are infinitely many prime numbers.

Proof. Start with a finite list of prime numbers

2, 3, 5, 7, . . . , P
where P is some big prime.
Consider the number
N = 2 · 3 · 5 · 7 · ... · P + 1
N is not divisible by any of the primes 2, 3, . . . , P on the list, because 2 · 3 · . . . · P is divisible
by all of them, and N is 1 greater than this; therefore N would have a remainder of 1 when
divided by any prime on the list.
If N is prime, it can be added to the list. If N is not prime, then because of theorem 11,
it can be factored into a product of primes. Because N is not divisible by any prime on
the list, it must be that its factors are not on the list. Then we can add these numbers to
the list.
This process yields a longer list of primes. We can repeat the process, yielding a list that
is still longer. Since at each step, the list will be made longer, it follows that the primes
do not end. 
 NUMBER THEORY 5

4. Appendix

This is a table listing the number of divisors of various natural numbers:

1 divisor 2 divisors 3 divisors 4 divisors 5 divisors 6 divisors 7 divisors

1 109 9 93 16 92 64
97 25 82 18
67 4 77 28
83 49 62 44
61 6 20
11 51 12
41 21 45
3 39 50
13 8 63
23 14 32
43 38 52
19 33 68
29 34 98
59 10 99
5 15 75
2 35
7 22
17 55
37 85
47 58
53 27
79 57
89 87
31 26
69
74
94
65
46
95
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8 divisors 9 divisors 10 divisors 11 divisors 12 divisors ∞ divisors

30 36 48 1024 60 0
24 80 84
54 72
42 90
40
78
56
70
88
104