Homework Help: discrete math

Posted by thisha on Thursday, September 28, 2006 at 6:10pm.

1)prove that if x is rational and x not equal to 0, then 1/x is rational.

2) prove that there is a positive integers that equals the sum of the positive integers not exceeding it. Is your proof constructive or nonconstructive?

For 1) use the definition of a non-zero rational number.
Defn: A non-zero rational is any number that can be expressed as p/q where p and q are non-zero integers.
If p/q is rational, then how about q/p?

For 2) you should be able to supply both a constructive and non-consructive proof.
Since the sum of any finite set of integers is an integer, there exists an integer for the sum of the first +n integers.
There is a formula for this, but I'll let you work on this.

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