# The identity cannot be a commutator in a Banach algebra?

The Wikipedia article on Banach algebras claims, without a proof or reference, that there does not exist a (unital) Banach algebra $B$ and elements $x, y \in B$ such that $xy - yx = 1$. This is surprising to me, but maybe the proof is straightforward; anyone have a proof and/or a reference?

More generally, I would have naively thought that I could embed any ring into a Banach algebra. I guess there are actually serious restrictions to doing this; are these issues discussed anywhere?

There is a Theorem of Wielandt which asserts that if $A$ is any normed algebra, complete or not, we can’t express $I = 1_{A}$ in the form $xy - yx$. The proof is given in Rudin’s book, but it is so beautiful that I give it here. Suppose that $xy -yx = I$. I claim that $xy^{n} - y^{n}x = ny^{n-1}$ for all $n \in \mathbb{N}$. We have the case $n = 1.$
Suppose that $xy^k - y^kx = ky^{k-1}$ for some $k$. Then so the claim is established by induction. Note that $y^n \neq 0$ for any $n$, since otherwise there is a smallest value of $n$ with $y^n = 0$, leading to $0 = xy^n - y^nx = ny^{n-1}$, contrary to the choice of $n$.
But now, for any $n$, we have Since $y^{n-1} \neq 0$, as remarked above, we have $2 \|x\| . \|y\| \geq n$, a contradiction, as $n$ is arbitrary.