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In-Class Problems Week 1, Fri.: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Prof. Albert R Meyer Prof. Adam Chlipala

This document contains 4 problems related to proofs involving rational and irrational numbers from the course 6.042J/18.062J Mathematics for Computer Science at MIT. The problems ask students to prove statements about sums and powers of rational and irrational numbers, and to generalize a proof that the square root of 2 is irrational to other numbers. It also provides a potential constructive example of irrational numbers whose product is rational.

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69 views

In-Class Problems Week 1, Fri.: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Prof. Albert R Meyer Prof. Adam Chlipala

This document contains 4 problems related to proofs involving rational and irrational numbers from the course 6.042J/18.062J Mathematics for Computer Science at MIT. The problems ask students to prove statements about sums and powers of rational and irrational numbers, and to generalize a proof that the square root of 2 is irrational to other numbers. It also provides a potential constructive example of irrational numbers whose product is rational.

Uploaded by

bob jane
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology

6.042J/18.062J, Spring ’15: Mathematics for Computer Science February 6


Prof. Albert R Meyer & Prof. Adam Chlipala revised Friday 30th January, 2015, 15:52

In-Class Problems Week 1, Fri.

Problem 1.
p
Prove that if a  b D n, then either a or b must be  n, where a; b, and n are nonnegative real numbers.
Hint: by contradiction, Section 1.8 LQWKHFRXUVHWH[WERRN

Problem 2. p
Generalize the proof of Theorem 1.8.1 repeated below that 2 is irrational1 LQWKHFRXUVHWH[WERRN
p
For example, how about 3?
p
Theorem. 2 is an irrational number.
p
Proof. The proof is by contradiction: assume that 2 is rational, that is,
p n
2D ; (1)
d
where n and d are integers. Now consider the smallest such positive integer denominator, d .
We will prove in a moment that the numerator, n, and the denominator, d , are both even. This
implies that
n=2
d=2
p
is a fraction equal to 2 with a smaller positive integer denominator, a contradiction.
p
Since the assumption thatp 2 is rational leads to this contradiction, the assumption
must be false. That is, 2 is indeed irrational. This italicized comment on the
implication of the contradiction normally goes without saying, but since this is an
early example of proof by contradiction, we’ve said it.

To prove that n and d have 2 as a common factor, we start by squaring both sides of (1) and get
2 D n2 =d 2 , so
2d 2 D n2 : (2)
So 2 is a factor of n2 , which is only possible if 2 is in fact a factor of n.
This means that n D 2k for some integer, k, so
n2 D .2k/2 D 4k 2 : (3)
Combining (2) and (3) gives 2d 2 D 4k 2 , so
d 2 D 2k 2 : (4)
So 2 is a factor of d 2 , which again is only possible if 2 is in fact also a factor of d , as claimed.

2015, Eric Lehman, F Tom Leighton, Albert R Meyer. This work is available under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 license.
1 Remember that an irrational number is a number that cannot be expressed as a ratio of two integers.
2 In-Class Problems Week 1, Fri.

Problem 3.
If we raise an irrational number to an irrational power, can the result be rational? Show that it can by
p p2
considering 2 and arguing by cases.

Problem 4.
The fact that that there are irrational numbers a; b such that ab is rational was proved earlier by cases.
Unfortunately, that proof was nonconstructive:
p it didn’t reveal a specific pair, a; b, with this property. But
in fact, it’s easy topdo this: let a WWD 2 and b WWD 2 log2 3.
We know a D 2 is irrational, and ab D 3 by definition. Finish the proof that these values for a; b work,
by showing that 2 log2 3 is irrational.
MIT OpenCourseWare
https://ocw.mit.edu

6.042J / 18.062J Mathematics for Computer Science


Spring 2015

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