Lagrange and the four-square theorem

DOI10.1007/S40329-014-0052-2MaRDI QIDQ262181zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Jenny Boucard

Publication date 29 March 2016

Published in Lettera Matematica. International Edition (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.1007/s40329-014-0052-2

zbMATH Keywords

four-square theoremindeterminate equationsmethod of infinite descentsums of squares

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

History of mathematics in the 18th century (01A50) Biographies, obituaries, personalia, bibliographies (01A70) History of number theory (11-03) Power residues, reciprocity (11A15)

Review text

Between 1766 and 1786 Joseph-Louis de Lagrange lived and studied in Berlin supported by the ``Königlich-Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften. At the beginning of this period, number theory was one of his favoured interests. In the centuries before, only Pierre de Fermat and Leonhard Euler were engaged to a lesser extent with questions of arithmetics. The author analyses their influence on Lagrange, particularly the mathematical questions Fermat and Euler posed, and their methods of proof. She also asks which statements were new and different to the research of Fermat and Euler. It was Lagrange's merit that number theory got more and more importance in mathematics. To show this by a more concrete example the author studies Lagrange's approach to solve the four-square theorem. Lagrange published his proof 1770 in the ``Nouveaux Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences et Belles-Lettres [\url{http://bibliothek.bbaw.de/bbaw/bibliothek-digital/digitalequellen/schriften/anzeige/index_html?band=03-nouv/1770&seite:int=200}]. Euler presented several memoires and letters to Lagrange concerning arithmetics. The author outlines the methods used by Lagrange and compares them to the modus operandi of Euler. She asserts: ``Euler and Lagrange are, in a way, typical of contrasting arithmetic practices: Euler, with number theory showing an increasing desire for autonomy and proofs based on arithmetic arguments; Lagrange, with an arithmetic focussed on indeterminate equations and disregarding the use of residues.

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Cites work

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Cited in

(9)

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