Suppose some exponent . DefinePart (iii) makes a normal operator. For every , put . The minimal polynomial identity givesPart (ii), applied to , forces . As this holds for every ,This contradicts minimality: is a monic polynomial of smaller degree annihilating . Therefore the minimal polynomial of a normal operator is a square-free polynomial over either of the given fields:This argument does not require the irreducible polynomials to be linear, so it also covers the real case.