# Lecture 11

Here’s the general case:

#### Algorithm

[Euclid’s algorithm] Suppose we must calculate the greatest common divisor of two positive integers. Call them $a$ and $b$ with $a\geq b$. If they’re not in the right order, we can swap them over earlier.

By division with remainder, we can write $a = qb+r$ for some integers $q$ and $r$ with $0\leq r.

But then we have $\gcd(a,b) {}= \gcd(qb+r,b) {}= \gcd(r,b) {}= \gcd(b,r),$ and since $b\leq a$ and $r we’ve made our numbers smaller.

If we keep doing this repeatedly, we’ll end up making one of the numbers zero and can stop (since $\gcd(d,0) = d$).

One might reasonably wonder just how fast Euclid’s algorithm really is. One good answer (not very hard to prove) is that if you’re trying to work out $\gcd(a,b)$ and $b\leq a$, then the number of steps you need is always less than five times the number of digits of $b$.

So working out $\gcd(123456789,987654321)$ will take less than $5\times 9 = 45$ divisions (actually, this one takes a lot less than $45$, if you try it). Compared with the other methods we discussed, this makes it seem really good.

Euclid’s algorithm is in fact even more useful than it looks: using Euclid’s algorithm, if we have $\gcd(a,b) = d$, that enables us to write $d$ in the form $ma+nb=d$ for some integers $m$ and $n$. (We say that we’re writing it as a linear combination of $a$ and $b$). This will be really useful later: I promise!

Let’s see how this works with an example. We saw earlier that $\gcd(126,70)=14$, so we expect to be able to find integers $m$ and $n$ such that $126m+70n=14$.

Along the way we found that: \begin{aligned} {}126 &= 1\times 70 + 56, &\qquad(1)\\ {}70 &= 1\times 56 + 14. &\qquad(2)\end{aligned} Working through that backwards, we get that \begin{aligned} {}14 &= 1\times 70 - 1\times 56 \qquad\text{(using (2))}\\ {}&= 1\times 70 - 1\times (1\times 126 - 1\times 70) \qquad\text{(using (1))}\\ {}&= 2\times 70 - 1\times 126.\end{aligned}

Similarly, when we calculated that $\gcd(556,296)=4$, we found that: \begin{aligned} {}556 &= 1\times 296+260, &\qquad(3)\\ {}296 &= 1\times 260+ 36, &\qquad(4)\\ {}260 &= 7\times 36+ 8, &\qquad(5)\\ {}36 &= 4\times 8+ 4. &\qquad(6)\end{aligned} This means that \begin{aligned} {}4 &= 36-4\times 8\qquad\text{(using (6))}\\ {}&= 36-4\times(260-7\times 36)\qquad\text{(using (5))}\\ {}&= 29\times 36-4\times 260\\ {}&= 29\times(296-260)-4\times 260\qquad\text{(using (4))}\\ {}&= 29\times296-33\times260\\ {}&= 29\times296-33\times(556-296)\qquad\text{(using (3))}\\ {}&= 62\times296-33\times556.\end{aligned}

In general, if we have positive integers $a$ and $b$, with $a>b$, we can start defining a sequence $a_0, a_1, \ldots$ as follows:

• $a_0=a$,

• $a_1=b$,

• $a_{n+2}$ is the remainder upon dividing $a_n$ by $a_{n+1}$: $a_n = q_na_{n+1} + a_{n+2}.$

This is a decreasing sequence, and eventually we will get $a_k = 0$ for some $k$; we can’t divide by zero, so we end the sequence there.

We then have $\gcd(a,b)=\gcd(a_0,a_1)=\gcd(a_1,a_2)=\cdots=\gcd(a_{k-1},0)=a_{k-1}.$

Let’s write $d=\gcd(a,b)$ for this.

Now, we have $a_{k-3} = q_{k-3}a_{k-2} + a_{k-1}$, so $a_{k-1} =a_{k-3} - q_{k-3}a_{k-2}$, so we can write $d$ as a linear combination of $a_{k-3}$ and $a_{k-2}$.

We have $a_{k-4} = q_{k-4}a_{k-3} + a_{k-2}$, so $a_{k-2} =a_{k-4} - q_{k-4}a_{k-3}$, so substituting in we can write $d$ as a linear combination of $a_{k-4}$ and $a_{k-3}$.

Proceeding in this way, we end up with $d$ as a linear combination of $a_0$ and $a_1$: in other words, of $a$ and $b$.

We’ve proved the following:

#### Proposition

[Bezout’s Lemma] Let $a$ and $b$ be two integers with $\gcd(a,b)=d$. Then there are integers $m$ and $n$ such that $ma+nb=d$.

In fact, slightly more is true:

#### Proposition

Let $a$ and $b$ be two integers with $\gcd(a,b)=d$. Then, for an integer $e$, we can write $e$ in the form $e=ma+nb$ if and only if $d\mid e$.

#### Proof

The “if” part: We must prove that, if $d\mid e$, then we can write $e$ as a linear combination of $a$ and $b$.

However, since $d\mid e$, we can write $e=dk$ for some $k$. Also, by the above Proposition we can write $d=ma+nb$ for some $m$ and $n$. But then $e = dk = (mk)a + (nk)b,$ as required.

The “only if” part: We must prove that if $e=ma+nb$, then $d\mid e$. But, since $d=\gcd(a,b)$ we have $d\mid a$ and $d\mid b$, and hence also $d\mid ma$ and $d\mid nb$, and therefore $d\mid ma+nb$ as required.