Thu, July 16, 2015
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Baker Systems 188
Title: What is Waring's Problem?
Speakers: Allison Paul & Sandeep Silwal
Abstract: In 1770 Lagrange proved his famous theorem that every natural number can be written as the sum of 4 squares. In the same year, Edward Waring in his Meditationes Algebraicae conjectured a generalization that every natural number can be written as the sum of at most s kth powers. This came to be known as Waring's Problem. In this talk, we overview the early solutions given by Hilbert and then Hardy and Littlewood as well as present an elementary solution by Y. V. Linnik. We also explore some generalizations to quadratic forms and algebraic number elds and others.
Seminar URL: http://math.osu.edu/whatis