Martin Aigner · Günter M. Ziegler Proofs from THE BOOK
Fifth Edition Martin Aigner Günter M. Ziegler Proofs from THE BOOK Fifth Edition Martin Aigner Günter M. Ziegler Proofs from THE BOOK
Fifth Edition
Including Illustrations by Karl H. Hofmann
123 Martin Aigner Günter M. Ziegler Freie Universität Berlin Freie Universität Berlin Berlin, Germany Berlin, Germany
ISBN978-3-662-44204-3 ISBN978-3-662-44205-0(eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-662-44205-0
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Springer is Part of Springer Science+Business Media www.springer.com Preface
Paul Erdos˝ liked to talk about The Book, in which God maintains the perfect proofs for mathematical theorems, following the dictum of G. H. Hardy that there is no permanent place for ugly mathematics. Erdos˝ also said that you need not believe in God but, as a mathematician, you should believe in The Book. A few years ago, we suggested to him to write up a first (and very modest) approximation to The Book. He was enthusiastic about the idea and, characteristically, went to work immediately, filling page after page with his suggestions. Our book was supposed to appear in March 1998 as a present to Erdos’˝ 85th birthday. With Paul’s unfortunate death in the summer of 1996, he is not listed as a co-author. Instead this book is dedicated to his memory. Paul Erdos˝ We have no definition or characterization of what constitutes a proof from The Book: all we offer here is the examples that we have selected, hop- ing that our readers will share our enthusiasm about brilliant ideas, clever insights and wonderful observations. We also hope that our readers will enjoy this despite the imperfections of our exposition. The selection is to a great extent influenced by Paul Erdos˝ himself. A large number of the topics were suggested by him, and many of the proofs trace directly back to him, or were initiated by his supreme insight in asking the right question or in making the right conjecture. So to a large extent this book reflects the views of Paul Erdos˝ as to what should be considered a proof from The Book. “The Book” A limiting factor for our selection of topics was that everything in this book is supposed to be accessible to readers whose backgrounds include only a modest amount of technique from undergraduate mathematics. A little linear algebra, some basic analysis and number theory, and a healthy dollop of elementary concepts and reasonings from discrete mathematics should be sufficient to understand and enjoy everything in this book. We are extremely grateful to the many people who helped and supported us with this project — among them the students of a seminar where we discussed a preliminary version, to Benno Artmann, Stephan Brandt, Stefan Felsner, Eli Goodman, Torsten Heldmann, and Hans Mielke. We thank Margrit Barrett, Christian Bressler, Ewgenij Gawrilow, Michael Joswig, Elke Pose, and Jörg Rambau for their technical help in composing this book. We are in great debt to Tom Trotter who read the manuscript from first to last page, to Karl H. Hofmann for his wonderful drawings, and most of all to the late great Paul Erdos˝ himself.
Berlin, March 1998 Martin Aigner · Günter M. Ziegler VI
Preface to the Fifth Edition
It is now almost twenty years that the idea to this project was born dur- ing some leisurely discussions at the Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut in Oberwolfach with the incomparable Paul Erdos.˝ At that time we could not possibly imagine the wonderful and lasting response our book about The Book would have, with all the warm letters, interesting comments and suggestions, new editions, and as of now thirteen translations. It is no exaggeration to say that it has become a part of our lives. In addition to numerous improvements and smaller changes, many of them suggested by our readers, the present fifth edition contains four new chap- ters, which present an extraordinary proof for the classical spectral theorem from linear algebra, the impossibility of the Borromean rings as a highlight from geometry, the finite version of Kakeya’s problem, and an inspired proof for Minc’s permanent conjecture. We thank everyone who helped and encouraged us over all these years. For the second edition this included Stephan Brandt, Christian Elsholtz, Jürgen Elstrodt, Daniel Grieser, Roger Heath-Brown, Lee L. Keener, Christian Lebœuf, Hanfried Lenz, Nicolas Puech, John Scholes, Bernulf Weißbach, and many others. The third edition benefitted especially from input by David Bevan, Anders Björner, Dietrich Braess, John Cosgrave, Hubert Kalf, Günter Pickert, Alistair Sinclair, and Herb Wilf. For the fourth edi- tion, we were particularly indebted to Oliver Deiser, Anton Dochtermann, Michael Harbeck, Stefan Hougardy, Hendrik W. Lenstra, Günter Rote, Moritz W. Schmitt, and Carsten Schultz for their contributions. For the present edition, we gratefully acknowledge ideas and suggestions by Ian Agol, France Dacar, Christopher Deninger, Michael D. Hirschhorn, Franz Lemmermeyer, Raimund Seidel, Tord Sjödin, and John M. Sullivan, as well as help from Marie-Sophie Litz, Miriam Schlöter, and Jan Schneider. Moreover, we thank Ruth Allewelt at Springer in Heidelberg and Christoph Eyrich, Torsten Heldmann, and Elke Pose in Berlin for their continuing sup- port throughout these years. And finally, this book would certainly not look the same without the original design suggested by Karl-Friedrich Koch, and the superb new drawings provided for each edition by Karl H. Hofmann.
Berlin, June 2014 Martin Aigner · Günter M. Ziegler Table of Contents
Number Theory 1
1. Sixproofsoftheinfinityofprimes ...... 3 2. Bertrand’spostulate...... 9 3. Binomial coefficients are (almost) never powers ...... 15 4. Representing numbers as sums of two squares ...... 19 5. The law of quadratic reciprocity ...... 25 6. Everyfinitedivisionringisafield...... 33 7. The spectral theorem and Hadamard’s determinant problem ...... 37 8. Someirrationalnumbers ...... 45 9. Three times π2/6 ...... 53
Geometry 61
10. Hilbert’s third problem: decomposing polyhedra ...... 63 11. Lines in the plane and decompositions of graphs ...... 73 12. Theslopeproblem...... 79 13. ThreeapplicationsofEuler’sformula ...... 85 14. Cauchy’srigiditytheorem...... 91 15. The Borromean rings don’t exist ...... 95 16. Touchingsimplices...... 103 17. Every large point set has an obtuse angle ...... 107 18. Borsuk’sconjecture ...... 113
Analysis 121
19. Sets, functions, and the continuum hypothesis ...... 123 20. In praise of inequalities ...... 139 21. The fundamental theorem of algebra ...... 147 22. One square and an odd number of triangles ...... 151 VIII Table of Contents
23. A theorem of Pólya on polynomials ...... 159 24. On a lemma of Littlewood and Offord ...... 165 25. Cotangent and the Herglotz trick ...... 169 26. Buffon’sneedleproblem...... 175
Combinatorics 179
27. Pigeon-hole and double counting ...... 181 28. Tiling rectangles ...... 193 29. Threefamoustheoremsonfinitesets...... 199 30. Shufflingcards...... 205 31. Lattice paths and determinants ...... 215 32. Cayley’s formula for the number of trees ...... 221 33. Identities versus bijections ...... 227 34. ThefiniteKakeyaproblem...... 233 35. CompletingLatinsquares...... 239
Graph Theory 245
36. TheDinitzproblem...... 247 37. Permanentsandthepowerofentropy...... 253 38. Five-coloring plane graphs ...... 261 39. Howtoguardamuseum ...... 265 40. Turán’sgraphtheorem...... 269 41. Communicating without errors ...... 275 42. The chromatic number of Kneser graphs ...... 285 43. Of friends and politicians ...... 291 44. Probability makes counting (sometimes) easy ...... 295
About the Illustrations 304 Index 305 Number Theory
1 Six proofs of the infinity of primes 3 2 Bertrand’s postulate 9 3 Binomial coefficients are (almost) never powers 15 4 Representing numbers as sums of two squares 19 5 The law of quadratic reciprocity 25 6 Every finite division ring is a field 33 7 The spectral theorem and Hadamard’s determinant problem 37 8 Some irrational numbers 45 9 Three times π2/6 53
“Irrationality and π” Six proofs Chapter 1 of the infinity of primes
It is only natural that we start these notes with probably the oldest Book Proof, usually attributed to Euclid (Elements IX, 20). It shows that the sequence of primes does not end.
Euclid’s Proof. For any finite set {p1,...,pr} of primes, consider the number n = p1p2 ···pr +1.Thisn has a prime divisor p.Butp is not one of the pi:otherwisep would be a divisor of n and of the product p1p2 ···pr, and thus also of the difference n − p1p2 ···pr =1,whichis impossible. So a finite set {p1,...,pr} cannot be the collection of all prime numbers. Before we continue let us fix some notation. N = {1, 2, 3,...} is the set of natural numbers, Z = {...,−2, −1, 0, 1, 2,...} the set of integers, and P = {2, 3, 5, 7,...} the set of primes. In the following, we will exhibit various other proofs (out of a much longer list) which we hope the reader will like as much as we do. Although they use different view-points, the following basic idea is common to all of them: The natural numbers grow beyond all bounds, and every natural number n ≥ 2 has a prime divisor. These two facts taken together force P to be infinite. The next proof is due to Christian Goldbach (from a letter to Leon- hard Euler 1730), the third proof is apparently folklore, the fourth one is by Euler himself, the fifth proof was proposed by Harry Fürstenberg, while the last proof is due to Paul Erdos.˝ 2n F0 =3 Second Proof. Let us first look at the Fermat numbers Fn =2 +1for F1 =5 n =0, 1, 2,... . We will show that any two Fermat numbers are relatively F2 =17 prime; hence there must be infinitely many primes. To this end, we verify F3 = 257 the recursion n −1 F4 = 65537 Fk = Fn − 2(n ≥ 1), F5 = 641 · 6700417 k=0 The first few Fermat numbers from which our assertion follows immediately. Indeed, if m is a divisor of, say, Fk and Fn (k To prove the recursion we use induction on n.Forn =1we have F0 =3 and F1 − 2=3. With induction we now conclude n n −1 Fk = Fk Fn =(Fn − 2)Fn = k=0 k=0 2n 2n 2n+1 =(2 − 1)(2 +1) = 2 − 1=Fn+1 − 2. M. Aigner, G.M. Ziegler, Proofs from THE BOOK, DOI 10.1007/978-3-662-44205-0_1, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014 4 Six proofs of the infinity of primes Third Proof. Suppose P is finite and p is the largest prime. We consider Lagrange’s theorem the so-called Mersenne number 2p − 1 and show that any prime factor q p If G is a finite (multiplicative) group of 2 − 1 is bigger than p, which will yield the desired conclusion. Let q be and U is a subgroup, then |U| a prime dividing 2p − 1,sowehave2p ≡ 1(mod q).Sincep is prime, this divides |G|. means that the element 2 has order p in the multiplicative group Zq\{0} of Z − Proof. Consider the binary rela- the field q. This group has q 1 elements. By Lagrange’s theorem (see tion the box) we know that the order of every element divides the size of the −1 p | q − 1 p It follows from the group axioms Now let us look at a proof that uses elementary calculus. ∼ that is an equivalence relation. Fourth Proof. Let π(x) :=#{p ≤ x : p ∈ P} be the number of primes The equivalence class containing an that are less than or equal to the real number x. We number the primes element a is precisely the coset P = {p1,p2,p3,...} in increasing order. Consider the natural logarithm { ∈ } x 1 Ua = xa : x U . log x,definedaslog x = 1 t dt. Nowwecomparetheareabelowthegraphoff(t)= 1 with an upper step Since clearly |Ua| = |U|,wefind t function. (See also the appendix on page 12 for this method.) Thus for that G decomposes into equivalence n ≤ x