Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2017/ib/paper-2/11e/b/solution

Consider all ideals containing and disjoint from the nonempty multiplicative subset . This collection is nonempty because it contains . The ascending chain condition for the Noetherian ring gives a maximal member : otherwise repeatedly choosing a strictly larger member would give an infinite strictly ascending chain of ideals. Since is nonempty and misses it, .
Suppose but . Maximality implies that and both meet , so write and with . Then
while closure under products gives , a contradiction. Hence
This proves the prime ideal avoiding a multiplicative subset result without needing . The assumptions themselves rule out , since every ideal contains zero.

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