Wednesday, 21 January 2026

Exercise (4.3).17

Explain why $2^n \mid  2^{2^n}$.


We first note that

$$\begin{align} 2^n & = \underbrace{2 \times 2 \times \ldots \times 2}_{n \text{ prime factors 2}} \\ \\ 2^{2^n} & = \underbrace{2 \times 2 \times \ldots \times 2}_{2^n \text{ prime factor 2}} \end{align}$$


Both $2^n$ and $2^{2^n}$ consist of only of prime factors 2. 

To show that $2^n \mid  2^{2^n}$ we need to show that the number of prime factors $2^n$ is more than or equal to $n$.

We will show $2^n \ge n$ by induction.


Base case $n=0$

$2^n = 2^0 = 1 \ge 0 = n$, and so $2^n \ge n$ is true for the base case $n=0$.


Induction Step $2^n \ge n \implies 2^{n+1} \ge n+1$

The induction hypothesis is that $2^n \ge n$, and we aim to show $2^{n+1} \ge n+1$.

$$ \begin{align} 2^{n+1} & = 2(2^n) \\ \\ & \ge 2 (n) \quad \text{induction hypothesis} \\ \\ & = n + n \\ \\ & \ge n + 1 \quad \text{for } n>0  \end{align} $$

We have shown $2^n \ge n \implies 2^{n+1} \ge n+1$.  The condition $n>0$ is valid as $n=0$ was handled in the base case.


By induction we have shown that the number of prime factors 2 in $2^{2^n}$ is greater than or equal to the number of prime factors 2 in $2^n$, and so $2^n \mid  2^{2^n}$.