Monday, 27 October 2025

Exercise (2.1).6

(a) Prove that consecutive integers have no prime factors in common.

(b) Prove that $\gcd (n, n + 1) = 1$.


(a) We've already shown in Exercise (1.1).18 a stronger result that consecutive integers have no common factors, prime or composite, except 1.

For practice, let's do it again.

If $g$ is a common factor of consecutive integers $n$ and $n+1$, then there exist integers $j,k$ such that

$$ n = jg $$

$$ n + 1 = kg $$

This means

$$ j + \frac{1}{g} = k $$

The only way $j,k$ are integers is if $g=1$. 

That is, consecutive integers only have 1 as a common factor, and so have no prime factors in common.


(b) We showed in part (a) above that consecutive integers $n, n+1$ only have 1 as a common factor. 

The gcd is the greatest common factor, which here is 1.

So $\gcd(n,n+1)=1$.