Euler gave a proof of the infinitude of primes which used the meromorphic behavior of the Riemann zeta function. In this post, we show that similar ideas can be used to show the infinitude of congruent numbers.
Most factorization algorithms in use today fit in one of two camps: sieve-based methods based on congruences of squares, and algorithms based on decompositions of algebraic groups. In this article, we trace the common thread connecting the latter.
In this note, I’ll discuss why square-root cancellation is so typical in problems in number theory and give a quick survey of important sums known or widely conjectured to satisfy bounds of this form.
The Gauss Circle Problem is a classic open problem in number theory concerning the number of lattice points contained in a large circle.
Optimal error bounds are known in these approximations in a generalization of the Gauss Circle Problem to spheres in dimensions four and above.
In this post, I’ll give a purely analytic proof of this result for even dimensions greater than four, and explain why the method fails in the other cases.
In this post, we discuss a few ways in which the symmetric and alternating groups can be realized as finite collections of self-maps on the Riemann sphere. We calculate maximal injections of symmetric and alternating groups and discuss when these actions respect a finite invariant set.
In 1946, S. Bochner published the paper Formal Lie Groups, in which he noted that several classical theorems (due to Sophus Lie) concerning infinitesimal transformations on Lie groups continue to hold when the (convergent) power series locally representing the group law was replaced by a suitable formal analogue. It was not long before this formalism found far-reaching uses in algebraic number theory and algebraic topology.
Unfortunately, few students see more than two or three explicit (i.e. closed form) group laws before stumbling into the deep end of abstract nonsense. In this article, we’ll see in a rigorous sense why this must be the case, providing along the way a complete classification of polynomial and rational formal group laws (over any reduced ring).
a. w. walker 