Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 ii Paper 3 1G c Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
Suppose that the positive integer is a decisive number. For every prime number , the composite number satisfies . It therefore cannot be coprime to , so .
The product of all prime numbers below consequently divides . Taking natural logarithms givesChanging the strict endpoint can remove at most one prime term. By part b, for every sufficiently large the right-hand side is at least, for example, . This is impossible for sufficiently large , sinceThus every decisive number lies below one fixed bound, and only finitely many integers can do so.