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Are there only finitely many complex numbers $z$ such that $z^{634}=1$?

I think there are only finitely many; is that not so?

J. W. Tanner
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Logan
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1 Answers1

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Yes, there are only finitely many $634^{th}$ complex roots of unity.

This is easily seen with polar notation. Let $z=re^{i\theta}$ and $z^{634}=1$.

Then $r=1$ and $\theta=\dfrac{2\pi n}{634}$.

There are only finitely many values of $n$ (viz., $634$) such that $0\le\dfrac{2\pi n}{634}<2\pi$.

J. W. Tanner
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  • There are, however, countably infinite values of $\theta$ such that $e^{i\theta}=1$ without the restriction $0\leq\theta\leq2\pi$ – Graviton Nov 26 '20 at 02:49
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    @Graviton: you are correct, but they don't correspond to infinitely many complex numbers – J. W. Tanner Nov 26 '20 at 02:51