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.
is a commutative monoid whose group of units is ; equivalently holds exactly for and
Statement
, with the multiplication of Arithmetic on the integers, is a commutative monoid (Semigroup and monoid). Its group of units (Left inverse, right inverse, and invertible element of a monoid, The invertible elements of a monoid form a group under the restricted operation) is
and these are two distinct elements. Equivalently, for the condition (Divisibility in : when for some integer ) holds exactly when or .
Facts & Assumptions
Given: with the operations of Arithmetic on the integers, and the embedding , , of The naturals embed in the integers.
is a commutative ring: multiplication is a function and is associative and commutative, , and every has an additive inverse , with and (The integers form a commutative ring, Arithmetic on the integers).
The order on is total, antisymmetric and transitive, and positives are closed under multiplication; means together with (The integers form a totally ordered ring, Order on the integers).
A binary operation on a set is a function ; a monoid is a set with an associative binary operation and a two-sided identity, and it is commutative when the operation is (Binary operation on a set; associativity, commutativity, and a subset closed under the operation, Left identity, right identity, and two-sided identity for a binary operation, Semigroup and monoid).
In a monoid , is a unit when it has a two-sided inverse, and denotes the set of units; is a group under the restricted operation (Left inverse, right inverse, and invertible element of a monoid, The invertible elements of a monoid form a group under the restricted operation, Group and abelian group).
means for some (Divisibility in : when for some integer ).
when and when (The absolute value of an integer); and exactly when (Absolute value in : ; exactly when ; ; ; ; and exactly when ).
is injective, preserves addition, multiplication and order, and its image is exactly the set of nonnegative integers; and (The naturals embed in the integers, The integers as equivalence classes of pairs of naturals).
On : if and only if (Discreteness: is the immediate successor); , and , so and (The natural numbers (von Neumann)); and for every (Order on the natural numbers).
Proof
Multiplication on is a function , hence a binary operation, and it is associative and commutative; is a two-sided identity, since and, by commutativity, . So is a commutative monoid.
For , being a unit of this monoid means for some , the two equations and being the same by commutativity; and for some is precisely . So .
Both and lie in : and .
, since lies in the image of , which is the set of nonnegative integers; hence . Also , since is injective and in .
Discreteness of : if then . Indeed , so for some ; because ; hence in , so , and applying , which preserves the order, gives .
: otherwise , whereas and because is injective and in .
Let . Since , [L6] gives and .
Also and , so , whence ; with step 2.1 and antisymmetry this gives .
From : if then , and if then , so . By totality one of the two holds, so or .
Combining, , a two-element set, and by [L4] it is a group under multiplication, with identity and with each of its elements its own inverse.
Remarks
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Why this is proved here and not cited. The published example is an abelian group, is a commutative monoid that is not a group, and its group of units is records the same fact, , but it lives on an examples page, and pages of that kind are leaves in the library's reading order: nothing later may depend on them. The statement is therefore re-established here, on a spine, so that later pages have a citable home for it. The two agree; neither rests on the other.
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The proof is an application of the divisor bound, not a computation. What makes the whole answer is that forces (If and then and ; hence the set of divisors of a nonzero integer is bounded above by ) while forces (discreteness), and antisymmetry closes the gap. Nothing about the decimal shape of an integer is used.
Depends on
The integers form a commutative ring
The integers form a totally ordered ring
Arithmetic on the integers
Order on the integers
The integers as equivalence classes of pairs of naturals
Binary operation on a set; associativity, commutativity, and a subset closed under the operation
Left identity, right identity, and two-sided identity for a binary operation
Semigroup and monoid
Left inverse, right inverse, and invertible element of a monoid
The invertible elements of a monoid form a group under the restricted operation
Group and abelian group
Divisibility in : when for some integer
If and then and ; hence the set of divisors of a nonzero integer is bounded above by
The absolute value of an integer
Absolute value in : ; exactly when ; ; ; ; and exactly when
The naturals embed in the integers
Discreteness: is the immediate successor
The natural numbers (von Neumann)
Order on the natural numbers