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Question: Euclid's Lemma: If $p$ is prime, then whenever $p$ divides a product $ab$, $p$ divides at least one of $a, b$.
Prove Euclid's Lemma and the converse, that any natural number having this property (for any pair $a, b$) must be prime.

Proof of Euclid's Lemma: Here, $p$ is a prime and $p|ab$.

Let's assume $a$ and $b$'s prime factorizations are:
$a = m_1m_2 \dots m_r$
$b = n_1n_1 \dots n_s$

Thus, $ab = m_1m_2 \dots m_rn_1n_1 \dots n_s$ Since $p|ab$ and it's a prime, it must be one of $m_1m_2 \dots m_r$ or $n_1n_1 \dots n_s$

Therefore, $p$ divides at least one of $a, b.$

Converse of Euclid's Lemma: For all $a, b$ if $p$ divides a product $ab$ and it divides at least one of $a,b$, then $p$ is a prime.

Proof: Let, $p$ is not a prime. Let, we can write $p$ as:
$p=m_1n_1$ We know, $p|ab$ and $p$ divides at least one of $a,b$
Let's assume $a$ and $b$'s prime factorizations are:
$a = m_1m_2 \dots m_r$
$b = n_1n_1 \dots n_s$

Thus, $ab = (m_1n_1)m_2 \dots m_rn_2 \dots n_s$
We can see in this case $p|ab$ but separately $p \nmid a$ and $p \nmid b$
Which contradicts our initial statement.

Therefore, p must be a prime.

I will be really grateful if you provide feedback to my proofs above. Thank you.

alu
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    I like your proof. There is another proof of Euclid's lemma that use bézout's identity without use fundamental theorem of arithmetic. – StCS Jul 09 '23 at 08:49
  • @StCS Thank you for liking my proof, I appreciate the feedback. I will search for the proof using bezout theorem. – alu Jul 09 '23 at 08:54
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    You are welcome. In this link (https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1581173/proof-of-euclids-lemma) there are some other proof, one of them is like yours. There are also the proof with bézout's theorem. – StCS Jul 09 '23 at 08:58
  • Thanks for the link, I checked out this before, but the proofs seemed lengthy so I simply posted my answer. I think the proof you say is like mine is the second one? With 3 upvotes. I think it will help me improve my proof. – alu Jul 09 '23 at 09:02
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    Yes it is the second solution with 3 upvotes. In the section "Old Answer Using FTA". – StCS Jul 09 '23 at 09:05
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    Usually, Euclid's Lemma is presented as a step on the way to proving unique factorization. Using unique factorization to prove Euclid's Lemma is then circular reasoning. – Gerry Myerson Jul 09 '23 at 09:20
  • @GerryMyerson Thank you for this nice feedback. I was confused about it, I wrote the proof and checked in my number theory book. And saw what you said, that Euclid's Lemma was already proved in another way and the prime factorization was proved later as theorems. That's why I got confused and posted here. I'm glad I posted because this is what I was looking for I guess. – alu Jul 09 '23 at 14:15
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    Yes, you can proved Euclid's Lemma using the existence and uniqueness of prime factorizations, but to obtain a rigorous proof you must explicitly invoke these properties by name when you employ them. Otherwise it is impossible to know if the intended proof is correct. See the linked dupes (and their links) for more on these common proofs.. – Bill Dubuque Jul 09 '23 at 16:11
  • For a solution-verification question to be on topic you must specify precisely which step in the proof you question, and why so. This site is not meant to be used as a proof checking machine. – Bill Dubuque Jul 09 '23 at 16:12
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    You have the right idea for the converse, but the logic is not correct. See here for a correct proof. – Bill Dubuque Jul 09 '23 at 16:16
  • @BillDubuque Thank you for your helpful feedback. I will try to improve my proofs based on your feedback. I don't exactly understand what you mean by "This site is not meant to be a proof checking machine". Does it mean, I should try to avoid posting proof verification questions, or does it mean I should write proofs with more precise steps? In this case I actually didn't know more steps were required. I just wrote what I felt was correct, forgot that I can't take unique prime factorization for granted, I thought it was like 1+1 = 2. – alu Jul 10 '23 at 03:28

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