On residual finiteness of direct products of algebraic systems

It is well known that if two algebraic structures A and B are residually finite then so is their direct product. Here we discuss the converse of this statement. It is of course true if A and B contain idempotents, which covers the case of groups, rings, etc. We prove that the converse also holds for semigroups even though they need not have idempotents. We also exhibit three examples which show that the converse does not hold in general.PostprintPeer reviewe