The Quadratic Reciprocity Law

Download or read book The Quadratic Reciprocity Law written by Oswald Baumgart and published by Birkhäuser. This book was released on 2015-05-27 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the English translation of Baumgart’s thesis on the early proofs of the quadratic reciprocity law (“Über das quadratische Reciprocitätsgesetz. Eine vergleichende Darstellung der Beweise”), first published in 1885. It is divided into two parts. The first part presents a very brief history of the development of number theory up to Legendre, as well as detailed descriptions of several early proofs of the quadratic reciprocity law. The second part highlights Baumgart’s comparisons of the principles behind these proofs. A current list of all known proofs of the quadratic reciprocity law, with complete references, is provided in the appendix. This book will appeal to all readers interested in elementary number theory and the history of number theory.