Prove that the product of a non-zero rational and irrational number is irrational.

As I mention here frequently, this ubiquitous property is simply an instance of complementary view of the subgroup property, i.e.

THEOREM $\ $ A nonempty subset $\rm\:S\:$ of abelian group $\rm\:G\:$ comprises a subgroup $\rm\iff\ S\ + \ \bar S\ =\ \bar S\ $ where $\rm\: \bar S\:$ is the complement of $\rm\:S\:$ in $\rm\:G$

Instances of this are ubiquitous in concrete number systems, e.g.

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You can directly divide by $q$ assuming the fact that $q \neq 0$.

Suppose $qy$ is rational then, you have $qy = \frac{m}{n}$ for some $n \neq 0$. This says that $y = \frac{m}{nq}$ which says that $\text{y is rational}$ contradiction.


A group theoretic proof: You know that if $G$ is a group and $H\neq G$ is one of its subgroups then $h \in H$ and $y \in G\setminus H$ implies that $hy \in G\setminus H$. Proof: suppose $hy \in H$. You know that $h^{-1} \in H$, and therefore $y=h^{-1}(hy) \in H$. Contradiction.

In our case, we have the group $(\Bbb{R}^*,\cdot)$ and its proper subgroup $(\Bbb{Q}^*,\cdot)$. By the arguments above $q \in \Bbb{Q}^*$ and $y \in \Bbb{R}\setminus \Bbb{Q}$ implies $qy \in \Bbb{R}\setminus \Bbb{Q}$.