Exercise 743Number theory › Divisibility and gcdL1Added 2 Nov 2026
Coprime powers remain coprime
#coprime#powers#Bézout
Statement
Let be coprime positive integers. Show that and are coprime for every .
Hint
Use Bézout and raise to a suitable power, or use prime factorizations.
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Solution
Prime factorization approach. Since , no prime divides both and . The prime factors of are exactly those of , and similarly for . Hence no prime divides both and , so .
Bézout approach. From , raise to the power :
Every term contains either or as a factor (since or ). So is a linear combination of and , hence they are coprime.