Brandeis-Harvard-MIT-Northeastern

JOINT MATHEMATICS COLLOQUIUM


 
15- and 290- Theorems

 

John Conway

Princeton University
 

Harvard University

Thursday, October 20, 2005


 

Talk at 4:30 p.m. in Science Center D

Tea at 4:00 p.m. in the Math Lounge


 
 

Abstract:   These are theorems about universal quadratic forms. They answer the following question: if a quadratic form represents 1,2,3,..., n, how large does n have to be so that we know it represents all positive integers. Schneeberger and I proved about ten years ago that the answer is 15 for positive definite forms with integral matrices. Very recently, Bhargava and Hanke proved that the answer is 290 for forms with integer values.


 

Home Web page:  Alexandru I. Suciu  Comments to:  alexsuciu@neu.edu 
Posted: October 6, 2005    URL: http://www.math.neu.edu/bhmn/conway05.html