Chinese Remainder Theorem

The Chinese remainder theorem is a theorem of number theory, which states that, if one knows the remainders of the 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.

This theorem has this name because it is a theorem about remainders, which was first discovered in the 3rd century AD by the Chinese mathematician Sunzi in Sunzi Suanjing.

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 commutative ring, with a formulation involving 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:

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). The result was later generalized with a complete solution called Dayanshu (大衍術) in Qin Jiushao's 1247 Mathematical Treatise in Nine Sections (數書九章, Shushu Jiuzhang).

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