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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]
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 ...
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 typical Diophantine problem is to find two integers x and y such that their sum, and the sum of their squares, equal two given numbers A and B, respectively: = + = +. Diophantus's major work is the Arithmetica, of which only a portion has survived. [23]
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 ]
Nevertheless, his argument in al-Fakhri is the earliest extant proof of the sum formula for integral cubes. [9] In India, early implicit proofs by mathematical induction appear in Bhaskara's "cyclic method". [10] None of these ancient mathematicians, however, explicitly stated the induction hypothesis.
The number of representations of a natural number n as the sum of four squares of integers is denoted by r 4 (n). Jacobi's four-square theorem states that this is eight times the sum of the divisors of n if n is odd and 24 times the sum of the odd divisors of n if n is even (see divisor function), i.e.