Primes and Greatest Common
Divisors
Section Summary
Prime Numbers and their Properties
Greatest Common Divisors and Least Common Multiples
The Euclidian Algorithm
gcds as Linear Combinations
Primes
Definition: A positive integer p greater than 1 is called
prime if the only positive factors of p are 1 and p. A
positive integer that is greater than 1 and is not prime
is called composite.
Example: The integer 7 is prime because its only
positive factors are 1 and 7, but 9 is composite
because it is divisible by 3.
The Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic
Theorem 1: Every positive integer greater than 1 can be written uniquely as a
prime or as the product of two or more primes where the prime factors are written
in order of non-decreasing size.
Examples:
100 = 2 ∙ 2 ∙ 5 ∙ 5 = 22 ∙ 52
641 = 641
999 = 3 ∙ 3 ∙ 3 ∙ 37 = 33 ∙ 37
1024 = 2 ∙ 2 ∙ 2 ∙ 2 ∙ 2 ∙ 2 ∙ 2 ∙ 2 ∙ 2 ∙ 2 = 210
Greatest Common Divisor
Example 1:
Example 2:
Greatest Common Divisor
Example: The integers 17 and 22 are relatively prime, because gcd(17,22)=1.
Example:
Finding the Greatest Common Divisor Using
Prime Factorizations
Suppose the prime factorizations of a and b are:
where each exponent is a nonnegative integer, and where all primes
occurring in either prime factorization are included in both. Then:
This formula is valid since the integer on the right (of the equals sign)
divides both a and b. No larger integer can divide both a and b.
Example: 120 = 23 ∙3 ∙5 500 = 22 ∙53
gcd(120,500) = 2min(3,2) ∙3min(1,0) ∙5min(1,3) = 22 ∙30 ∙51 = 20
Finding the gcd of two positive integers using their prime factorizations is
not efficient because there is no efficient algorithm for finding the prime
factorization of a positive integer.
Least Common Multiple
Least Common Multiple
Definition: The least common multiple of the positive
integers a and b is the smallest positive integer that is
divisible by both a and b. It is denoted by lcm(a,b).
The least common multiple can also be computed from
the prime factorizations.
This number is divided by both a and b and no smaller
number is divided by a and b.
Example: lcm(233572, 2433) = 2max(3,4) 3max(5,3) 7max(2,0) = 24 35 72
The greatest common divisor and the least common
multiple of two integers are related by:
Theorem 5: Let a and b be positive integers. Then
ab = gcd(a,b) ∙ lcm(a,b)
Euclidean Algorithm (Efficient way to find gcd)
The Euclidian algorithm is an efficient method for
computing the greatest common divisor of two
integers. It is based on the idea that gcd(a,b) is equal
to gcd(b,r) when a > b and r is the remainder when a
is divided by b.
Example: Find gcd(91, 287):
287 = 91 ∙ 3 + 14 Divide 287 by 91
91 = 14 ∙ 6 + 7 Divide 91 by 14
14 = 7 ∙ 2 + 0 Divide 14 by 7
Stopping
condition
gcd(287, 91) = gcd(91, 14) = gcd(14, 7) = 7 continued →
Étienne Bézout
(1730-1783)
gcds as Linear Combinations
Bézout’s Theorem: If a and b are positive integers, then there exist
integers s and t such that gcd(a,b) = sa + tb.
Definition: If a and b are positive integers, then integers s and t
such that gcd(a,b) = sa + tb are called Bézout coefficients of
a and b. The equation gcd(a,b) = sa + tb is called Bézout’s
identity.
By Bézout’s Theorem, the gcd of integers a and b can be
expressed in the form sa + tb where s and t are integers. This is
a linear combination with integer coefficients of a and b.
gcd(6,14) = 2 = (−2)∙6 + 1∙14
Example of Bezout’s Theorem:
Consequences of Bézout’s Theorem
PRACTICE QUESTIONS
