Question

Use Euclid’s division lemma to show that the square of any positive integer is either of form 3m or 3m + 1 for some integer m.

[Hint: Let x be any positive integer then it is of the form 3q, 3q + 1 or 3q + 2. Now square each of these and show that they can be rewritten in the form 3m or 3m + 1.]

Answer 1

Let a be any positive integer and b = 3.

Then a = 3q + r for some integer q ≥ 0

And r = 0, 1, 2 because 0 ≤ r < 3

Therefore, a = 3q or 3q + 1 or 3q + 2

Or,

Where k₁, k₂, and k₃ are some positive integers

Hence, it can be said that the square of any positive integer is either of the form 3m or 3m + 1.