Prove that (2,x) is not a principal ideal of Z[x]
Proof. Assume by contradiction that (2,x) is a principal ideal. Then (2,x)=(f(x)), where f(x)∈Z[x]. Say we have 2∈(f(x)). Then by the definition of an ideal, we have that 2=f(x)g(x) for some g(x)∈Z[x]. By some basic calculus and that Z[x] is an integral domain, we have that deg(f(x)g(x))=deg(f(x))+deg(g(x)). So we know 2=f(x)g(x) possible if both f(x) and g(x) are constants. This implies that f(x),g(x)∈{±1,±2}. We see the two different situations:
- Assume that f(x)=±1. Then this implies that (f(x))=Z[x], which is not a proper ideal.
- Assume that f(x)=±2. Then we have that if x∈(f(x)), then x=2⋅g(x). This implies that g(x)=21x, which is impossible since g(x)∈{±1,±2} and secondly 21∈Z.
So (2,x) is not a principal ideal of Z[x], which completes the proof.
Note that with the proof above, we also proved that Z[x] is not a PID.