$\def\ord{\operatorname{ord}}$I could not prove the following statement. Could you please help me?
Let $\ord_p a = p-1$. Show that for every $c∈\mathbb Z$, $\gcd(c,p)=1$, there exists $1≤i≤p-1$ such that $c≡a^i \pmod p$
$\def\ord{\operatorname{ord}}$I could not prove the following statement. Could you please help me?
Let $\ord_p a = p-1$. Show that for every $c∈\mathbb Z$, $\gcd(c,p)=1$, there exists $1≤i≤p-1$ such that $c≡a^i \pmod p$
Consider the numbers $a^1, a^2, a^3,\dots, a^{p-1}$. None of them is congruent to $0$ modulo $p$. For if $a^i$ is divisible by $p$, then so is $a$, contradicting the fact that $a^{p-1}\equiv 1\pmod{p}$.
Suppose there are two numbers $i$ and $j$, with $1\le i\lt j\le p-1$, such that $a^i\equiv a^j \pmod{p}$. Then $a^{j-i}\equiv 1\pmod{p}$. (This can be proved by cancellation, or more precisely by multiplying both sides by $b^i$, where $b$ is the inverse of $a$ modulo $p$.) Since $1\le j-i\lt p-1$, this contradicts the fact that $a$ has order $p-1$.
So all of our $a^i$ are distinct modulo $p$. That means that their remainders on division by $p$ take on $p-1$ distinct values. That means that the remainders travel, in some order, through all numbers from $1$ to $p-1$. It follows that for any $c\not\equiv 0\pmod{p}$, there is an $i$ with $1\le i\le p-1$ such that $a^i\equiv c\pmod{p}$.