Kummer's Restatement of Euclid's Proof

By Chris Caldwell

Euclid may have been the first to give a proof that there are infintely many primes.  Even after 2000 years it stands as an excellent model of reasoning.  Kummer gave a more elegant version of this proof which we give below (following Ribenboim [Ribenboim95, p. 4]).  See the page "There are Infinitely Many Primes" for several other proofs.

Theorem.
There are infinitely many primes.
Proof.
Suppose that there exist only finitely many primes p1 < p2 < ... < pr. Let N = p1.p2.....pr.   The integer N-1, being a product of primes, has a prime divisor pi in common with N; so, pi divides N - (N-1) =1, which is absurd!
Printed from the PrimePages <t5k.org> © Reginald McLean.