Fermat's Last Theorem Implies Euclid's Infinitude of Primes

Abstract

We show that Fermat's last theorem and a combinatorial theorem of Schur on monochromatic solutions of a+b=c implies that there exist infinitely many primes. In particular, for small exponents such as n=3 or 4 this gives a new proof of Euclid's theorem, as in this case Fermat's last theorem has a proof that does not use the infinitude of primes. Similarly, we discuss implications of Roth's theorem on arithmetic progressions, Hindman's theorem, and infinite Ramsey theory towards Euclid's theorem. As a consequence we see that Euclid's Theorem is a necessary condition for many interesting (seemingly unrelated) results in mathematics.

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