Theorems on residues obtained by the division of powers

Abstract

This is an English translation of Euler's ``Theoremata circa residua ex divisione potestatum relicta'', Novi Commentarii academiae scientiarum Petropolitanae 7 (1761), 49-82. E262 in the Enestrom index. Euler gives many elementary results on power residues modulo a prime number p. He shows that the order of a subgroup generated by an element a in F_p^* must divide the order p-1 of F_p^* (i.e. a special case of Lagrange's theorem for cyclic groups). Euler also gives a proof of Fermat's little theorem, that a^{p-1} = 1 mod p for a relatively prime to p (i.e. not 0 mod p). He remarks that this proof is more natural, as it uses multiplicative properties of F_p^* instead of the binomial expansion. Thanks to Jean-Marie Bois for pointing out some typos.