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.
Quadratic Reciprocity and the Jacobi Symbol — Examples
1 · Prerequisites
- Binary Operations, Monoids, Groups and Subgroups
- Congruences, the Integers Modulo n and the Chinese Remainder Theorem
- Construction of the Natural Numbers
- Construction of the Real Numbers via Cauchy Sequences
- Construction of the Real Numbers via Dedekind Cuts
- Cosets, Index and Lagrange's Theorem
- Countability and Uncountability
- Cyclic Groups and Direct Products
- Divisibility, Greatest Common Divisors and Bézout's Identity
- Finite Counting, Factorials and Binomial Coefficients
- Foundations of the Real Numbers for Analysis
- Group Homomorphisms and the Isomorphism Theorems
- Normal Subgroups and Quotient Groups
- Polynomial Rings, the Division Algorithm and Roots
- Primes, Euclid's Lemma and the Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic
- Primitive Roots and Unit Groups Modulo N
- Quadratic Reciprocity and the Jacobi Symbol
- Quadratic Residues and the Legendre Symbol
- Relations, Functions, and Quotients
- Rings, Subrings, Integral Domains and Fields
- Roots, Rational Powers, and Classical Inequalities
- The Fundamental Theorem of Finite Abelian Groups
- The ZFC Axioms and the Basic Set Constructions
2 · Summary
3 · Logical flowchart
4 · Definitions, theorems and proofs
None yet.
5 · Examples, counterexamples and false statements
A complete reciprocity table for
Example
The nonzero square classes for the primes are
| nonzero squares modulo | |
|---|---|
Using the definition of the Legendre symbol (The Legendre symbol, including its zero value) gives the complete pair table
| relation | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| agree | |||
| opposite | |||
| opposite | |||
| agree | |||
| agree | |||
| opposite |
The signs are opposite exactly when both primes are congruent to modulo , as predicted by quadratic reciprocity (Quadratic reciprocity for distinct odd primes).
Facts & Assumptions
Given: The primes and the residue tables displayed in the Example.
For distinct odd primes , (Quadratic reciprocity for distinct odd primes).
For an odd prime , the Legendre symbol is on nonzero square classes, on nonzero nonsquare classes, and on the zero class (The Legendre symbol, including its zero value).
Verification
Squaring every residue class modulo each prime gives the displayed nonzero square sets. Reading the residues of each numerator from those sets by [L2] gives all entries in the pair table.
For the pairs , , and both primes are modulo and the direct signs are opposite; in every other row at least one prime is modulo and the signs agree. Each row therefore has the product required by [L1].
Computing by the Euclidean Jacobi algorithm
Example
The Euclidean Jacobi algorithm (The Euclidean algorithm computes the Jacobi symbol without factoring the denominator) evaluates
without factoring . Its states are
Facts & Assumptions
Given: The initial pair with odd positive denominator.
The Euclidean Jacobi algorithm terminates and returns without factoring the odd denominator (The Euclidean algorithm computes the Jacobi symbol without factoring the denominator).
Verification
The divisions and sign updates are , , , , and . The first swap has no sign change, removing either square power of has no sign change, and the swap of and changes the sign because both are modulo ; the next denominator is . After each complete update, these calculations give exactly the displayed state sequence.
The terminal sign is , and [L1] identifies it with . No factorisation of occurs in step 1.1.
Jacobi symbol one does not imply a square:
Statement refuted
The converse of A unit square modulo an odd integer has Jacobi symbol one is false: a unit with need not be a square modulo the odd positive integer .
Facts & Assumptions
Given: The unit numerator and the odd denominator .
For odd with canonical prime factorisation , define (The Jacobi symbol, with its zero value and empty-product convention).
Counterexample
The nonzero square classes modulo are and those modulo are , so and . Using in [L1] gives .
If , reduction modulo would give , but the complete square set modulo is . Thus is not a square modulo , despite its Jacobi symbol being .
Lifting both square roots of from modulo to modulo
Example
The two roots of lift along the powers of as follows:
| modulus | first branch | second branch |
|---|---|---|
Thus the square roots of modulo are the classes of and .
Facts & Assumptions
Given: The target , the odd prime , and the two roots modulo .
A nonsingular root modulo has a unique lift of the form modulo , with uniquely determined modulo (A nonsingular square root lifts uniquely by one odd-prime-power step).
A soluble unit square congruence modulo an odd prime power has exactly two solution classes (Unit square criterion and root count modulo odd prime powers).
Verification
Direct squaring gives the roots modulo . Solving the correction congruence of [L1] on each branch gives corrections modulo for the lift to , then for the lift to , and finally for the lift to ; these yield the two displayed chains and .
One has and , so both final classes are roots. They are distinct, and [L2] says a soluble unit congruence has exactly two roots, so the list is complete.
The four square roots of modulo
Example
The square roots of modulo are
Facts & Assumptions
Given: The unit target modulo .
For , an odd target is a square modulo exactly when it is modulo , and every soluble target has exactly four roots (Unit square criterion and root count modulo powers of two).
Verification
The representatives are distinct modulo , and , , , and . Thus all four displayed classes are roots.
Since , [L1] says that the congruence is soluble and has exactly four root classes. The four distinct roots in step 1.1 are therefore complete.
The square roots of modulo by the Chinese remainder theorem
Example
The square roots of modulo are
Facts & Assumptions
Given: The factorisation into pairwise coprime prime powers.
A unit is a square modulo if and only if it is a square modulo every prime-power factor of (A unit is a square modulo exactly when it is a square at every prime-power factor).
The number of square roots of a soluble unit is the product of the local root counts (The number of square roots of a unit modulo is the product of the local counts).
Verification
The roots of are modulo , are modulo , and are modulo . By [L1], every combination of these local roots gives a global root, and [L2] gives global roots.
Solving the finite CRT systems and reducing modulo gives exactly the displayed representatives. They are distinct, and reducing each one modulo , , and places it in the corresponding local root set from step 1.1, so [L1] verifies that each square is modulo ; the count in [L2] proves completeness.
Odd-prime tests alone miss the obstruction to being a square modulo
Statement refuted
For an even modulus, testing whether a unit is a square modulo every odd prime divisor does not suffice to prove that it is a square modulo the original modulus.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: The unit modulo .
For , an odd integer is a square modulo if and only if it is congruent to modulo (Unit square criterion and root count modulo powers of two).
A unit square modulo is a square modulo every prime-power factor of (A unit is a square modulo exactly when it is a square at every prime-power factor).
Counterexample
The only odd prime divisor of is , and , so it passes the odd-prime square test. But , and [L1] shows that it is not a square modulo .
If were a square modulo , the forward implication in [L2] would make it a square modulo the prime-power factor , contradicting step 1.1. Hence the odd-prime test misses the two-part obstruction.
Odd primes represented by a divisor of
Example
An odd prime divides for some integer if and only if or . Equivalently, for every odd prime , the congruence is soluble if and only if .
Facts & Assumptions
Given: An odd prime .
For distinct odd primes , (Quadratic reciprocity for distinct odd primes).
For every odd prime , (First supplement: ).
For an odd prime , the Legendre symbol is exactly on the nonzero square classes modulo (The Legendre symbol, including its zero value).
For every odd prime and integers , (The Legendre symbol is multiplicative for all integer numerators).
Verification
Suppose . Applying [L1] to and gives by [L2]. Since is a sign and [L4] gives , multiplication by yields .
By [L3], is soluble exactly when . For , step 1.1 makes this equivalent to , and the nonzero square classes modulo consist only of , so this is equivalent to . For , the class directly satisfies .
There are infinitely many primes congruent to modulo
Statement
The set of primes satisfying is infinite (Finite, countably infinite, countable, uncountable).
Facts & Assumptions
Given: The set .
For every odd prime , the congruence is soluble if and only if (Odd primes represented by a divisor of ).
Every integer greater than has a prime divisor (Every integer has a prime divisor; indeed the least divisor of that exceeds is prime).
A finite product has empty-product value and satisfies (The product of a finite list in a monoid, by recursion, with the empty product () equal to the identity).
In a commutative monoid, permuting the entries of a finite product does not change its value (Generalised associativity: in a monoid the product of a finite list does not depend on the bracketing, and in a commutative monoid it does not depend on the order of the factors either).
A set is finite if for some (Finite, countably infinite, countable, uncountable).
The relation means that there exists a bijection (Equinumerous sets, and ).
A bijection is, in particular, surjective (Injection, surjection, bijection).
If and , then for all integers (Divisibility is reflexive and transitive on , and is linear: if and then for all integers ; also implies , and ).
Proof
Suppose, for contradiction, that is finite. By [L5] and [L6], choose a bijection from some natural number onto and write its prime values as ; surjectivity is [L7]. Let , using the value if from [L3], and set . By [L2], choose a prime . Since is odd and , one has .
From and , the class of solves , so [L1] gives . Thus and equals some ; by [L4] move that factor to the end of the finite product, and then [L3] gives , hence . Together with , [L8] gives , impossible for a prime. Therefore is not finite.
Sources
Standard references
Recommended treatments; not extraction sources.
- A. Gorodnik, Number Theory, Lecture 10, Example 1.6
- V. Shoup, A Computational Introduction to Number Theory and Algebra, 2nd ed., §12.3
- P. Hackman, Elementary Number Theory, §D.II
- A. Gorodnik, Number Theory, Lecture 10, Note 1.3
- A. Gorodnik, Number Theory, Lecture 9, Example 2.4
- A. Gorodnik, Number Theory, Lecture 9, consequence after Example 2.4