Step 1: the three sets have a number of elements. By claim 3 of Uniqueness of the Identity Element and of Inverses in a Group the set is nonempty, and it is finite by hypothesis, so it has elements for some natural number .
The subgroup is a subset of and is nonempty, since by condition 1 of Subgroup. Hence claim 3 of Basic Properties of Finite Sets shows that has elements for some , and .
The map defined by is surjective, because by Left Coset, Order of a Group, and Index of a Subgroup every element of is of the form for some . Hence claim 4 of Basic Properties of Finite Sets shows that is finite and nonempty and has elements for some , and .
Step 2: the left cosets form a partition indexed by . Let be a bijection from the initial segment onto , which exists because has elements. For put ; each is an element of , hence a left coset of and in particular a subset of .
We verify the three hypotheses of Counting a Partition into Blocks of Equal Cardinality for the set and the subsets , .
Hypothesis 1. Let . The left coset is an element of , so by surjectivity of there is with . By claim 1 of Left Cosets Partition a Group and All Have the Same Cardinality we have .
Hypothesis 2. Let with . Since is injective by claim 1 of Injectivity, Composition, and Restriction of Bijections, we have . Write and with . If were nonempty, claim 3 of Left Cosets Partition a Group and All Have the Same Cardinality would give , i.e. , a contradiction. Hence .
Hypothesis 3. Each is a left coset, say , and has elements by Step 1, so claim 4 of Left Cosets Partition a Group and All Have the Same Cardinality shows that has elements.
Step 3: proof of claim 1. By Counting a Partition into Blocks of Equal Cardinality, the set has elements. Since also has elements, Uniqueness of the Number of Elements gives , that is
Together with the finiteness and nonemptiness of and established in Step 1, this proves claim 1.
Step 4: proof of claim 2. By Step 1 the index is an element of , and by Step 3 we have . Taking in the definition of divisibility shows that divides .
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Prerequisites
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