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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.
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
Diophantus takes the square to be 16 and solves the problem as follows: [1] To divide a given square into a sum of two squares. To divide 16 into a sum of two squares. Let the first summand be , and thus the second . The latter is to be a square.
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.
Gauss [10] pointed out that the four squares theorem follows easily from the fact that any positive integer that is 1 or 2 mod 4 is a sum of 3 squares, because any positive integer not divisible by 4 can be reduced to this form by subtracting 0 or 1 from it. However, proving the three-square theorem is considerably more difficult than a direct ...
The number of ways to represent n as the sum of four squares 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.
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]
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.