Prove that every integer
is either prime or is a product of primes.
Proof. The proof is by induction. If

or

, then

is prime, so the statement is true.
Now assume that the statement is true for all integers from 2 up to

. We want to show that this implies

is either prime or a product of primes. If

is prime then there is nothing to show and we are done. On the other hand, if

is not prime, then we know there are integers

and

such that

(i.e.,

is divisible by numbers other than 1 and itself).
By the induction hypothesis, since

we know that

and

are either prime or are products of primes. But then

and so

is a product of primes (since the product

is a product of primes, whether

and

are primes or products of primes themselves).
Hence, if the statement is true for all integers greater than 1 up to

then it is also true for

; hence, it is true for all