Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2015 / ia / Paper 4 / 6E / ii

For $1\le j\le p-1$, the identity for binomial coefficientsshows that $p$ divides $j\left(\genfrac{}{}{0ex}{}{p}{j}\right)$. Since $p$ is a prime number and $j$ is not divisible by $p$, cancellation modulo $p$ givesThe binomial theorem consequently gives $(1+x{)}^p\equiv 1+x^p$ as a coefficientwise polynomial modular congruence. Apply the same identity with $x$ replaced by $x^{p^r}$ and use mathematical induction to obtainThis is an iteration of the Frobenius endomorphism in characteristic $p$. Comparing the intermediate coefficients gives the prime-power binomial divisibility result