Quadratic reciprocity has hundreds of proofs, but the nicest ones I’ve seen (at least at the elementary level) use Gauss sums. One variant uses the cyclotomic field ℚ(ζ), where ζ is a p-th root of unity. Another brings in the finite fields 𝔽p and 𝔽q.
I wrote up a long, loving, and chatty treatment several years ago, going through the details for several examples. Much longer than the proofs! The diagram up top may give you an inkling.
Anyway, here it is.
Filed under Number Theory
MW: Last time we learned about the “back-and-forth” condition for two countable structures M and N for a (countable) language L:
Filed under Conversations, Peano Arithmetic
MW: Time to finish off Enayat’s Theorem 7:
Theorem 7: Every countable recursively saturated model N of PA+ΦT is a T-standard model of PA.
Filed under Conversations, Peano Arithmetic
MW: We’re still going through Enayat’s proof of his Theorem 7:
Theorem 7: Every countable recursively saturated model N of PA+ΦT is a T-standard model of PA.
Filed under Conversations, Peano Arithmetic
MW: I ended the last post with a puzzle. Here it is again, in more detail.
Filed under Conversations, Peano Arithmetic
MW: Enayat’s second major result is:
Theorem 7: Every countable recursively saturated model of PA+ΦT is a T-standard model of PA.
Filed under Conversations, Peano Arithmetic
My unique (but not very unique) microwave
Everyone has their pet peeves, and peeves about language abound. My pet peeve is with people who object that “very unique” is illogical. For example, this pithy statement:
Uniqueness is a binary condition. Something is unique or it is not. There are no degrees of uniqueness. Something cannot be partly unique, mostly unique, very unique, etc.
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Armillary Sphere, Facade of Santa Maria Novella (Wikimedia Commons)
Another post from the History Book Club, this time based on three books:
Filed under Astronomy, History Book Club
MW: Continuing the recap… Continue reading
Filed under Peano Arithmetic
Diagonal Argument 