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Concept
Chinese remainder theorem
Summary
In mathematics, the Chinese remainder theorem states that if one knows the remainders of the Euclidean division of an integer n by several integers, then one can determine uniquely the remainder of the division of n by the product of these integers, under the condition that the divisors are pairwise coprime (no two divisors share a common factor other than 1).
For example, if we know that the remainder of n divided by 3 is 2, the remainder of n divided by 5 is 3, and the remainder of n divided by 7 is 2, then without knowing the value of n, we can determine that the remainder of n divided by 105 (the product of 3, 5, and 7) is 23. Importantly, this tells us that if n is a natural number less than 105, then 23 is the only possible value of n.
The earliest known statement of the theorem is by the Chinese mathematician Sunzi in the Sunzi Suanjing in the 3rd century CE.
The Chinese remainder theorem is widely used for computing with large integers, as it allows replacing a computation for which one knows a bound on the size of the result by several similar computations on small integers.
The Chinese remainder theorem (expressed in terms of congruences) is true over every principal ideal domain. It has been generalized to any ring, with a formulation involving two-sided ideals.
The earliest known statement of the theorem, as a problem with specific numbers, appears in the 3rd-century book Sunzi Suanjing by the Chinese mathematician Sunzi:
There are certain things whose number is unknown. If we count them by threes, we have two left over; by fives, we have three left over; and by sevens, two are left over. How many things are there?
Sunzi's work contains neither a proof nor a full algorithm. What amounts to an algorithm for solving this problem was described by Aryabhata (6th century). Special cases of the Chinese remainder theorem were also known to Brahmagupta (7th century), and appear in Fibonacci's Liber Abaci (1202).
Official source
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