Is there a mistake in the proof of Theorem 4 in Kaplansky's Commutative Rings?

146 Views Asked by At

Here is a theorem (Theorem 4) in Kaplansky's Commutative Rings.

Let $R$ be an integral domain. Let $S$ be the set of all elements in $R$ expressible as a product of principal primes. Then $S$ is a saturated multiplicatively closed set.

The definition of a saturated multiplicatively closed set is as follows:

A multiplicatively closed set $S$ is saturated if $x\in S$ implies that $S$ contains all the divisors of $x$.

When the author was proving the theorem, he said that

To prove that $S$ is saturated we assume $ab\in S$ and have to prove that $a$ and $b$ lie in $S$.

My Question: I am wondering if $a=p$ is a prime and $b=1$, then $ab=p\cdot 1\in S$ implies that $a=p\in S$ and $b=1\in S$. But $1$ should not be in $S$. Maybe I misunderstand something or how to fix the problem.

Thanks a lot.