I'm still making my way along in Niven's Intro to Number Theory, and the title problem is giving me a little trouble near the end, and I was hoping someone could help get me through it.
Now $x^8\equiv 16\pmod{2}$ is solvable with $x\equiv 0\pmod{2}$, so I assume $p$ is an odd prime. From a theorem earlier in the text,
If $p$ is a prime and $(a,p)=1$, then the congruence $x^n\equiv a\pmod{p}$ has $(n,p-1)$ solutions or no solution according as $a^{(p-1)/(n,p-1)}\equiv 1\pmod{p}$ or not.
So since $(16,p)=1$, the problem reduces to showing that $16^{(p-1)/(8,p-1)}\equiv 1\pmod{p}$ holds for all $p$. I note that $(8,p-1)$ can only take values $2,4,8$. For $2$, the above equivalence is then $4^{p-1}\equiv 1\pmod{p}$, which is true by Fermat's little Theorem. For $4$, it is then $2^{p-1}\equiv 1\pmod{p}$, which again holds by FlT. However, the case where $(8,p-1)=8$ is throwing me off. At best I see that $16^{(p-1)/8}\equiv 2^{(p-1)/2}\pmod{p}$, but I'm not sure how to show this is congruent to $1$ modulo $p$. Maybe there's a more elegant way to do it without looking at cases. Thanks for any insight.
Best Answer
One way is to use the Legendre symbol identity $2^{(p-1)/2} \equiv (\frac{2}{p}) \equiv (-1)^{(p^2-1)/8} \pmod p$ (for odd primes p), keeping in mind that if $(8,p-1)=8$ then $p \equiv 1 \pmod 8$.