# Any module is projective iff any module is injective

Show that the following are equivalent for a ring:

(1) any $R$-module is projective.

(2) any $R$-module is injective

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Hint: think in terms of short exact sequences. –  Qiaochu Yuan Jan 11 '13 at 3:08
What definition of injective and projective do you know? Do you know any equivalent conditions? –  Tobias Kildetoft Jan 11 '13 at 17:35
I don't think this equivalence has ever been pointed out to me, but I love the symmetry! I can easily come up with a proof that works in any abelian category with both enough projectives and enough injectives. Is the above true for all abelian categories? Or can someone come up with a counterexample? –  Piotr Pstrągowski Jan 11 '13 at 17:53
For projective modules I know they are equivalent to $M$ is a summand of a free module.Or any short exact sequence $L \rightarrow M \rightarrow Q$, where Q is the projective module, then this is a split sequence. –  Alex Jan 11 '13 at 18:58
and for injective modules $D$, I think that any short exact sequence $D \rightarrow M \rightarrow N$ is split. Besides these two, I know nothing more. –  Alex Jan 11 '13 at 19:01

Here is a proof that if $R$ is a ring such that any $R$-module is projective, then any $R$-module is injective (it will hopefully then be clear how to do the other direction).
We wish to show that if $A$ is some arbitrary $R$-module, then any short exact sequence $0 \to A\to B \to C \to 0$ splits. But by assumption $C$ is projective (since all $R$-modules are), which means that the sequence does indeed split as we wanted.