The n-th root of m is either an integer or irrational

https://arbital.com/p/566

by Joe Zeng Jul 6 2016

In other words, no power of a rational number that is not an integer is ever an integer.


There is an intuitive way to see that for any natural numbers and , will always either be an integer or an irrational number.

Suppose that there was some that was a rational number that was not an integer. Suppose further that is written as a [-reduced] fraction, such that the Greatest common divisor of and is . Then, since is not an integer, .

Since , we have conversely that , which is a natural number by our hypothesis. But let's take a closer look at . It evaluates to , which is still a reduced fraction. [todo: Proof of gcd(a^n, b^n) = 1.]

But since before, we have that as well, meaning that cannot be an integer, contradicting the fact that it equals , a natural number.