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.
Every principal ideal domain is a unique factorisation domain
Statement
Assuming the Axiom of Choice, every principal ideal domain is a unique factorisation domain.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A PID , the Axiom of Choice (The Axiom of Choice), hence dependent choice (The axiom of dependent choice: a relation in which every element is related to something admits an -indexed chain), and the UFD definition of Unique factorisation domain, which excludes zero from the factorization clause and treats a unit as an empty product of irreducibles.
Every principal ideal domain is Noetherian (Every principal ideal domain is Noetherian).
In a Noetherian module, every nonempty family of submodules has a maximal member; the route from ACC to this maximal condition carries the published dependent-choice cost (Finite generation, ACC, and maximal-condition characterizations of Noetherian modules).
Every irreducible element of a principal ideal domain is prime (Every irreducible element of a principal ideal domain is prime).
Proof
Suppose, for contradiction, that some nonzero nonunit is not a product of irreducibles. The principal ideals generated by such bad elements form a nonempty family; by [L1] and [L2], choose a maximal member . This use of the maximal condition spends DC, supplied by the assumed AC. The element is not irreducible, so with nonunit nonzero . Then is strictly contained in both and : for example, would give and cancellation would make a unit. Maximality therefore makes and products of irreducibles, and their product is a factorization of , a contradiction. Thus every nonzero nonunit factors into irreducibles.
For uniqueness, if are irreducible factorizations, primality of from [L3] makes it divide some , hence the two factors are associates. Cancel them in the domain and repeat on the remaining finite product. This induction pairs every factor and shows up to order and associates; the empty product is the unit case.
Step 1.1 gives factorization existence and step 1.2 gives the uniqueness required in the UFD definition. Therefore every PID is a UFD; the contradictory assumption in step 1.1 is discharged.
Depends on
Every principal ideal domain is Noetherian
Finite generation, ACC, and maximal-condition characterizations of Noetherian modules
Every irreducible element of a principal ideal domain is prime
Unique factorisation domain
The axiom of dependent choice: a relation in which every element is related to something admits an -indexed chain
The Axiom of Choice