Template:Curing property dissatisfaction
Statement
The ring of rational integers cannot be made a uniquely Euclidean domain with any norm.
Proof
The proof can be broken down into the following steps:
- We cannot have
such that
: If such an
exists, we have
and also
: two Euclidean divisions for
by itself.
- We cannot have
such that
: If such an
exists, we have
and also
: two Euclidean divisions for
by itself.
- Thus,
and no element has smaller norm.
- Suppose
. Then at most one of these holds:
or
. This follows from the uniqueness of Euclidean division for
by
.
for all positive integers
: We prove this by induction on
. Clearly,
. Suppose
.By the previous step, either
or
. But by the induction hypothesis,
, which in turn is equal to
, so
. Thus, neither of these holds, so
. Step (3) then forces
.
for all positive integers
: The proof is analogous to the preceding one, relying on the division of
by
.
- Combining the last two steps, all elements have equal norm, and this is clearly not a Euclidean norm.