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Height Function
A height function is a function that quantifies the complexity of mathematical objects. In Diophantine geometry, height functions quantify the size of solutions to Diophantine equations and are typically functions from a set of points on algebraic varieties (or a set of algebraic varieties) to the real numbers. For instance, the ''classical'' or ''naive height'' over the rational numbers is typically defined to be the maximum of the numerators and denominators of the coordinates (e.g. for the coordinates ), but in a logarithmic scale. Significance Height functions allow mathematicians to count objects, such as rational points, that are otherwise infinite in quantity. For instance, the set of rational numbers of naive height (the maximum of the numerator and denominator when expressed in lowest terms) below any given constant is finite despite the set of rational numbers being infinite. In this sense, height functions can be used to prove asymptotic results such as Baker's t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Function (mathematics)
In mathematics, a function from a set to a set assigns to each element of exactly one element of .; the words map, mapping, transformation, correspondence, and operator are often used synonymously. The set is called the domain of the function and the set is called the codomain of the function.Codomain ''Encyclopedia of Mathematics'Codomain. ''Encyclopedia of Mathematics''/ref> The earliest known approach to the notion of function can be traced back to works of Persian mathematicians Al-Biruni and Sharaf al-Din al-Tusi. Functions were originally the idealization of how a varying quantity depends on another quantity. For example, the position of a planet is a ''function'' of time. Historically, the concept was elaborated with the infinitesimal calculus at the end of the 17th century, and, until the 19th century, the functions that were considered were differentiable (that is, they had a high degree of regularity). The concept of a function was formalized at the end of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mordell–Weil Theorem
In mathematics, the Mordell–Weil theorem states that for an abelian variety A over a number field K, the group A(K) of ''K''-rational points of A is a finitely-generated abelian group, called the Mordell–Weil group. The case with A an elliptic curve E and K the field of rational numbers is Mordell's theorem, answering a question apparently posed by Henri Poincaré around 1901; it was proved by Louis Mordell in 1922. It is a foundational theorem of Diophantine geometry and the arithmetic of abelian varieties. History The ''tangent-chord process'' (one form of addition theorem on a cubic curve) had been known as far back as the seventeenth century. The process of infinite descent of Fermat was well known, but Mordell succeeded in establishing the finiteness of the quotient group E(\mathbb)/2E(\mathbb) which forms a major step in the proof. Certainly the finiteness of this group is a necessary condition for E(\mathbb) to be finitely generated; and it shows that the rank is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Néron–Tate Height
In number theory, the Néron–Tate height (or canonical height) is a quadratic form on the Mordell–Weil group of rational points of an abelian variety defined over a global field. It is named after André Néron and John Tate. Definition and properties Néron defined the Néron–Tate height as a sum of local heights. Although the global Néron–Tate height is quadratic, the constituent local heights are not quite quadratic. Tate (unpublished) defined it globally by observing that the logarithmic height h_L associated to a symmetric invertible sheaf L on an abelian variety A is “almost quadratic,” and used this to show that the limit :\hat h_L(P) = \lim_\frac exists, defines a quadratic form on the Mordell–Weil group of rational points, and satisfies :\hat h_L(P) = h_L(P) + O(1), where the implied O(1) constant is independent of P.Lang (1997) p.72 If L is anti-symmetric, that is 1*L=L^, then the analogous limit :\hat h_L(P) = \lim_\frac converges and satisfies \h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Douglas Northcott
Douglas Geoffrey Northcott, FRS (31 December 1916, London – 8 April 2005) was a British mathematician who worked on ideal theory. Early life and career Northcott was born Douglas Geoffrey Robertson in Kensington on 31 December 1916 to Clara Freda (née Behl) (1894-1958) and her first husband Geoffrey Douglas Spence Robertson (1894-1978). His mother remarried in 1919 to Arthur Hugh Kynaston Northcott (1887-1952). In 1935, he legally adopted his step-father's surname. He was educated in London, then at Christ's Hospital and St John's College, Cambridge, where he started research under the supervision of G.H. Hardy His work was interrupted by active service during World War II. Captured at Singapore, he survived his time as a prisoner of war in Japan, and returned to Cambridge at the end of the war. Back at Cambridge, he published his dissertation "Abstract Tauberian theorems with applications to power series and Hilbert series ". He then turned to algebra under the influence ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
André Weil
André Weil (; ; 6 May 1906 – 6 August 1998) was a French mathematician, known for his foundational work in number theory and algebraic geometry. He was a founding member and the ''de facto'' early leader of the mathematical Bourbaki group. The philosopher Simone Weil was his sister. The writer Sylvie Weil is his daughter. Life André Weil was born in Paris to agnostic Alsatian Jewish parents who fled the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine by the German Empire after the Franco-Prussian War in 1870–71. Simone Weil, who would later become a famous philosopher, was Weil's younger sister and only sibling. He studied in Paris, Rome and Göttingen and received his doctorate in 1928. While in Germany, Weil befriended Carl Ludwig Siegel. Starting in 1930, he spent two academic years at Aligarh Muslim University in India. Aside from mathematics, Weil held lifelong interests in classical Greek and Latin literature, in Hinduism and Sanskrit literature: he had taught himself Sanskrit in 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interval (music)
In music theory, an interval is a difference in pitch between two sounds. An interval may be described as horizontal, linear, or melodic if it refers to successively sounding tones, such as two adjacent pitches in a melody, and vertical or harmonic if it pertains to simultaneously sounding tones, such as in a chord. In Western music, intervals are most commonly differences between notes of a diatonic scale. Intervals between successive notes of a scale are also known as scale steps. The smallest of these intervals is a semitone. Intervals smaller than a semitone are called microtones. They can be formed using the notes of various kinds of non-diatonic scales. Some of the very smallest ones are called commas, and describe small discrepancies, observed in some tuning systems, between enharmonically equivalent notes such as C and D. Intervals can be arbitrarily small, and even imperceptible to the human ear. In physical terms, an interval is the ratio between two sonic freq ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Consonance
In music, consonance and dissonance are categorizations of simultaneous or successive sounds. Within the Western tradition, some listeners associate consonance with sweetness, pleasantness, and acceptability, and dissonance with harshness, unpleasantness, or unacceptability, although there is broad acknowledgement that this depends also on familiarity and musical expertise. The terms form a structural dichotomy in which they define each other by mutual exclusion: a consonance is what is not dissonant, and a dissonance is what is not consonant. However, a finer consideration shows that the distinction forms a gradation, from the most consonant to the most dissonant. In casual discourse, as German composer and music theorist Paul Hindemith stressed, "The two concepts have never been completely explained, and for a thousand years the definitions have varied". The term ''sonance'' has been proposed to encompass or refer indistinctly to the terms ''consonance'' and ''dissonance''. Def ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giambattista Benedetti
Giambattista (Gianbattista) Benedetti (August 14, 1530 – January 20, 1590 in) was an Italian mathematician from Venice who was also interested in physics, mechanics, the construction of sundials, and the science of music. Science of motion In his works ''Resolutio omnium Euclidis problematum'' (1553) and ''Demonstratio proportionum motuum localium'' (1554), Benedetti proposed a new doctrine of the speed of bodies in free fall. The accepted Aristotelian doctrine at that time was that the speed of a freely falling body is directly proportional to the total weight of the body and inversely proportional to the density of the medium. Benedetti's view was that the speed depends on just the difference between the specific gravity of the body and that of the medium. As opposed to the Aristotelian theory, his theory predicts that two objects of the same material but of different weights would fall at the same speed, and also that objects of different materials in a vacuum would fal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mathematical Logic
Mathematical logic is the study of logic, formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory. Research in mathematical logic commonly addresses the mathematical properties of formal systems of logic such as their expressive or deductive power. However, it can also include uses of logic to characterize correct mathematical reasoning or to establish foundations of mathematics. Since its inception, mathematical logic has both contributed to and been motivated by the study of foundations of mathematics. This study began in the late 19th century with the development of axiomatic frameworks for geometry, arithmetic, and Mathematical analysis, analysis. In the early 20th century it was shaped by David Hilbert's Hilbert's program, program to prove the consistency of foundational theories. Results of Kurt Gödel, Gerhard Gentzen, and others provided partial resolution to the program, and clarified the issues involved in pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arithmetic Geometry
In mathematics, arithmetic geometry is roughly the application of techniques from algebraic geometry to problems in number theory. Arithmetic geometry is centered around Diophantine geometry, the study of rational points of algebraic variety, algebraic varieties. In more abstract terms, arithmetic geometry can be defined as the study of scheme (mathematics), schemes of Finite morphism#Morphisms of finite type, finite type over the spectrum of a ring, spectrum of the ring of integers. Overview The classical objects of interest in arithmetic geometry are rational points: solution set, sets of solutions of a system of polynomial equations over number fields, finite fields, p-adic fields, or Algebraic function field, function fields, i.e. field (mathematics), fields that are not algebraically closed excluding the real numbers. Rational points can be directly characterized by height functions which measure their arithmetic complexity. The structure of algebraic varieties defined over ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diophantine Equation
In mathematics, a Diophantine equation is an equation, typically a polynomial equation in two or more unknowns with integer coefficients, such that the only solutions of interest are the integer ones. A linear Diophantine equation equates to a constant the sum of two or more monomials, each of degree one. An exponential Diophantine equation is one in which unknowns can appear in exponents. Diophantine problems have fewer equations than unknowns and involve finding integers that solve simultaneously all equations. As such systems of equations define algebraic curves, algebraic surfaces, or, more generally, algebraic sets, their study is a part of algebraic geometry that is called ''Diophantine geometry''. The word ''Diophantine'' refers to the Hellenistic mathematician of the 3rd century, Diophantus of Alexandria, who made a study of such equations and was one of the first mathematicians to introduce symbolism into algebra. The mathematical study of Diophantine problems that Di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diophantine Approximation
In number theory, the study of Diophantine approximation deals with the approximation of real numbers by rational numbers. It is named after Diophantus of Alexandria. The first problem was to know how well a real number can be approximated by rational numbers. For this problem, a rational number ''a''/''b'' is a "good" approximation of a real number ''α'' if the absolute value of the difference between ''a''/''b'' and ''α'' may not decrease if ''a''/''b'' is replaced by another rational number with a smaller denominator. This problem was solved during the 18th century by means of continued fractions. Knowing the "best" approximations of a given number, the main problem of the field is to find sharp upper and lower bounds of the above difference, expressed as a function of the denominator. It appears that these bounds depend on the nature of the real numbers to be approximated: the lower bound for the approximation of a rational number by another rational number is larger than ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
