Let u = 2 2 0 1 5 − 1 . Evaluate the congruence
φ ( u ) ( m o d 2 0 1 5 )
where φ ( u ) is the Euler totient function.
Tip : You probably don't want to compute φ ( u ) because that would be, well, rather large -- there is a nice way around it.
This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try
refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and,
finally, (c)
loading the
non-javascript version of this page
. We're sorry about the hassle.
Consider U 2 2 0 1 5 − 1 , the set of all residues in modulo 2 2 0 1 5 − 1 relatively prime to 2 2 0 1 5 − 1 . Being in this set implies that an element is a 'unit', or has a multiplicative inverse.
Note that 2 ∈ U 2 2 0 1 5 − 1 , and the order of two is 2 0 1 5 . I'll sketch out a quick proof that a ∈ U k ⇒ o r d ( a ) ∣ φ ( k ) :
Observe that a φ ( k ) ≡ 1 ( m o d k ) , which is just Euler's totient theorem. Now, consider the following set of powers of a :
{ a 1 , a 2 , a 3 . . . a o r d ( a ) }
Since a o r d ( a ) ≡ 1 , we have a k ≡ a k ( m o d o r d ( a ) ) , right? So since by definition for k < o r d ( a ) we have a k = 1 we know a k ≡ 1 iff k is 0 ( m o d o r d ( a ) ) or o r d ( a ) ∣ k . Hence, o r d ( a ) ∣ φ ( k ) .
Now we done, since o r d ( 2 ) ∣ φ ( 2 2 0 1 5 − 1 ) or 2 0 1 5 ∣ φ ( 2 2 0 1 5 − 1 ) .
Problem Loading...
Note Loading...
Set Loading...
As Dylon points out, we can use the fact that in a finite group the order of any element divides the order of the group, a corollary to Lagrange's Theorem.
For a fixed positive integer n , let G be the multiplicative group modulo 2 n − 1 , with o r d ( G ) = ϕ ( 2 n − 1 ) . Now o r d ( 2 ) = n , so that n ∣ ϕ ( 2 n − 1 ) . Letting n = 2 0 1 5 , we see that the answer is 0 .