How statement and proof provenance work
The first chip identifies the source of the statement or construction; the second identifies the source of its local proof or verification.
- Literature-sourced: the exact statement appears in a cited source; only wording and notation differ.
- AI-adapted: a semantically identical restatement of literature-sourced material, modulo indexing, notation, and boundary cases adopted by the library.
- AI-generated: a genuinely novel statement formulated by AI, with no source for the claim itself.
These labels describe origin, not correctness: citations and verification chips remain separate evidence.
Reducing modulo lowers each below , preserves the values on the grid, and preserves any top-degree coefficient whose exponents stay below the grid sizes
Statement
Let be a field, let , and let finite nonempty sets . Put
Then there is a polynomial such that:
- either , or for every and ;
- for every ;
- if and the monomial has top total degree with each , then .
Facts & Assumptions
Given: a field , finite nonempty subsets , and a polynomial .
The total degree and the separate degrees are taken from the monomial expansion (Monomials, coefficients, degree in each variable and total degree in ).
Division by a monic polynomial in one variable over a commutative ring gives a quotient and remainder with smaller degree in that variable (Division by a monic polynomial over a commutative ring).
For every , the factor appears in , so .
Proof
Set . For each , view as a polynomial in with coefficients in . Since is monic of degree , [F2] gives with or . Because involves only , this subtraction leaves all previously obtained bounds for unchanged; and every nonleading term of has smaller -degree than its leading term, so the division step introduces no monomial of larger total degree. Therefore satisfies part 1.
Let . For each , step 1.1 gives , and [F3] gives because . Hence for every , so chaining these equalities yields .
In the situation of part 3, fix a stage . Any monomial of total degree in must use the leading term of , because every other term of has smaller total degree. So every top-degree monomial of has -exponent at least . Since the target monomial has exponent for every , no stage changes its coefficient. Therefore .
Remarks
- Part 3 is the clause that the Nullstellensatz actually uses. The degree reduction and grid agreement alone do not see the top coefficient.
Depends on
- Monomials, coefficients, degree in each variable and total degree in $F[x_1,\dots,x_n]$
- Division by a monic polynomial over a commutative ring
- Degree, leading coefficient and monic polynomial, with the zero polynomial having no degree
- Polynomial rings in finitely many commuting indeterminates by iteration
- Evaluation and roots of a polynomial in a commutative target ring
- Field
Used by
- Multilinear polynomials and the reduction xᵢ²↦ xᵢ on the cube Definition
- Applying the Nullstellensatz by hand to f(x,y)=x²y+xy²+x+y over ℚ Example
- f̃ is multilinear, agrees with f at every point of {0,1}ⁿ, is degree-nonincreasing when nonzero, and is the unique multilinear polynomial with that agreement Lemma
- Alon's Combinatorial Nullstellensatz: if deg f=∑ᵢtᵢ, the coefficient of x₁^t₁⋯ xₙ^tₙ in f is nonzero, and | Sᵢ|>tᵢ, then f(s₁,…,sₙ)≠0 for some sᵢ∈ Sᵢ Theorem
Dependency tree · two levels
13 results within two dependency steps of this one, each drawn at its shortest distance from it. An arrow runs from a result to what uses it, so the chart reads left to right and ends at this result, which carries a heavier outline. Every node is a link to that result. Click elsewhere on the chart to enlarge it.
Sources
- N. Alon, Combinatorial Nullstellensatz, proof of Theorem 1.2 (standard reference, not scraped)