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The Basel problem is a problem in mathematical analysis with relevance to number theory, concerning an infinite sum of inverse squares. It was first posed by Pietro Mengoli in 1650 and solved by Leonhard Euler in 1734, [ 1 ] and read on 5 December 1735 in The Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences . [ 2 ]
For the avoidance of ambiguity, zero will always be a valid possible constituent of "sums of two squares", so for example every square of an integer is trivially expressible as the sum of two squares by setting one of them to be zero. 1. The product of two numbers, each of which is a sum of two squares, is itself a sum of two squares.
Therefore, the theorem states that it is expressible as the sum of two squares. Indeed, 2450 = 7 2 + 49 2. The prime decomposition of the number 3430 is 2 · 5 · 7 3. This time, the exponent of 7 in the decomposition is 3, an odd number. So 3430 cannot be written as the sum of two squares.
Legendre's three-square theorem states which numbers can be expressed as the sum of three squares; Jacobi's four-square theorem gives the number of ways that a number can be represented as the sum of four squares. For the number of representations of a positive integer as a sum of squares of k integers, see Sum of squares function.
A result of Albrecht Pfister [8] shows that a positive semidefinite form in n variables can be expressed as a sum of 2 n squares. [9] Dubois showed in 1967 that the answer is negative in general for ordered fields. [10] In this case one can say that a positive polynomial is a sum of weighted squares of rational functions with positive ...
In number theory, Waring's problem asks whether each natural number k has an associated positive integer s such that every natural number is the sum of at most s natural numbers raised to the power k. For example, every natural number is the sum of at most 4 squares, 9 cubes, or 19 fourth powers.
In proof by mathematical induction, a single "base case" is proved, and an "induction rule" is proved that establishes that any arbitrary case implies the next case. Since in principle the induction rule can be applied repeatedly (starting from the proved base case), it follows that all (usually infinitely many) cases are provable. [ 15 ]
The problem is uninteresting for K of characteristic 2, since over such fields every sum of squares is a square, and we exclude this case. It is believed that otherwise admissibility is independent of the field of definition. [1]: 137