Mordell–Weil Theorem
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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 ...
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Number Theory
Number theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic function, integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) said, "Mathematics is the queen of the sciences—and number theory is the queen of mathematics."German original: "Die Mathematik ist die Königin der Wissenschaften, und die Arithmetik ist die Königin der Mathematik." Number theorists study prime numbers as well as the properties of mathematical objects made out of integers (for example, rational numbers) or defined as generalizations of the integers (for example, algebraic integers). Integers can be considered either in themselves or as solutions to equations (Diophantine geometry). Questions in number theory are often best understood through the study of Complex analysis, analytical objects (for example, the Riemann zeta function) that encode properties of the integers, primes ...
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Addition Theorem
In mathematics, an addition theorem is a formula such as that for the exponential function: :''e''''x'' + ''y'' = ''e''''x'' · ''e''''y'', that expresses, for a particular function (mathematics), function ''f'', ''f''(''x'' + ''y'') in terms of ''f''(''x'') and ''f''(''y''). Slightly more generally, as is the case with the trigonometric functions and , several functions may be involved; this is more apparent than real, in that case, since there is an algebraic function of (in other words, we usually take their functions both as defined on the unit circle). The scope of the idea of an addition theorem was fully explored in the nineteenth century, prompted by the discovery of the addition theorem for elliptic functions. To "classify" addition theorems it is necessary to put some restriction on the type of function ''G'' admitted, such that :''F''(''x'' + ''y'') = ''G''(''F''(''x''), ''F''(''y'')). In this identity one ca ...
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Birch And Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture
In mathematics, the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture (often called the Birch–Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture) describes the set of rational solutions to equations defining an elliptic curve. It is an open problem in the field of number theory and is widely recognized as one of the most challenging mathematical problems. It is named after mathematicians Bryan John Birch and Peter Swinnerton-Dyer, who developed the conjecture during the first half of the 1960s with the help of machine computation. , only special cases of the conjecture have been proven. The modern formulation of the conjecture relates arithmetic data associated with an elliptic curve ''E'' over a number field ''K'' to the behaviour of the Hasse–Weil ''L''-function ''L''(''E'', ''s'') of ''E'' at ''s'' = 1. More specifically, it is conjectured that the rank of the abelian group ''E''(''K'') of points of ''E'' is the order of the zero of ''L''(''E'', ''s'') at ''s'' = 1, and the first non-zero ...
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Effective Results In Number Theory
For historical reasons and in order to have application to the solution of Diophantine equations, results in number theory have been scrutinised more than in other branches of mathematics to see if their content is effectively computable. Where it is asserted that some list of integers is finite, the question is whether in principle the list could be printed out after a machine computation. Littlewood's result An early example of an ineffective result was J. E. Littlewood's theorem of 1914, that in the prime number theorem the differences of both ψ(''x'') and π(''x'') with their asymptotic estimates change sign infinitely often. In 1933 Stanley Skewes obtained an effective upper bound for the first sign change, now known as Skewes' number. In more detail, writing for a numerical sequence ''f'' (''n''), an ''effective'' result about its changing sign infinitely often would be a theorem including, for every value of ''N'', a value ''M'' > ''N'' such that ''f'' ('' ...
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Quadratic Form
In mathematics, a quadratic form is a polynomial with terms all of degree two ("form" is another name for a homogeneous polynomial). For example, :4x^2 + 2xy - 3y^2 is a quadratic form in the variables and . The coefficients usually belong to a fixed field , such as the real or complex numbers, and one speaks of a quadratic form over . If K=\mathbb R, and the quadratic form takes zero only when all variables are simultaneously zero, then it is a definite quadratic form, otherwise it is an isotropic quadratic form. Quadratic forms occupy a central place in various branches of mathematics, including number theory, linear algebra, group theory (orthogonal group), differential geometry (Riemannian metric, second fundamental form), differential topology ( intersection forms of four-manifolds), and Lie theory (the Killing form). Quadratic forms are not to be confused with a quadratic equation, which has only one variable and includes terms of degree two or less. A quadratic form is ...
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Galois Cohomology
In mathematics, Galois cohomology is the study of the group cohomology of Galois modules, that is, the application of homological algebra to modules for Galois groups. A Galois group ''G'' associated to a field extension ''L''/''K'' acts in a natural way on some abelian groups, for example those constructed directly from ''L'', but also through other Galois representations that may be derived by more abstract means. Galois cohomology accounts for the way in which taking Galois-invariant elements fails to be an exact functor. History The current theory of Galois cohomology came together around 1950, when it was realised that the Galois cohomology of ideal class groups in algebraic number theory was one way to formulate class field theory, at the time it was in the process of ridding itself of connections to L-functions. Galois cohomology makes no assumption that Galois groups are abelian groups, so this was a non-abelian theory. It was formulated abstractly as a theory of class ...
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Projective Variety
In algebraic geometry, a projective variety over an algebraically closed field ''k'' is a subset of some projective ''n''-space \mathbb^n over ''k'' that is the zero-locus of some finite family of homogeneous polynomials of ''n'' + 1 variables with coefficients in ''k'', that generate a prime ideal, the defining ideal of the variety. Equivalently, an algebraic variety is projective if it can be embedded as a Zariski closed subvariety of \mathbb^n. A projective variety is a projective curve if its dimension is one; it is a projective surface if its dimension is two; it is a projective hypersurface if its dimension is one less than the dimension of the containing projective space; in this case it is the set of zeros of a single homogeneous polynomial. If ''X'' is a projective variety defined by a homogeneous prime ideal ''I'', then the quotient ring :k _0, \ldots, x_nI is called the homogeneous coordinate ring of ''X''. Basic invariants of ''X'' such as the degree and the dim ...
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Homogeneous Coordinates
In mathematics, homogeneous coordinates or projective coordinates, introduced by August Ferdinand Möbius in his 1827 work , are a system of coordinates used in projective geometry, just as Cartesian coordinates are used in Euclidean geometry. They have the advantage that the coordinates of points, including points at infinity, can be represented using finite coordinates. Formulas involving homogeneous coordinates are often simpler and more symmetric than their Cartesian counterparts. Homogeneous coordinates have a range of applications, including computer graphics and 3D computer vision, where they allow affine transformations and, in general, projective transformations to be easily represented by a matrix. If homogeneous coordinates of a point are multiplied by a non-zero scalar then the resulting coordinates represent the same point. Since homogeneous coordinates are also given to points at infinity, the number of coordinates required to allow this extension is one more than ...
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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 ...
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Rank Of An Abelian Group
In mathematics, the rank, Prüfer rank, or torsion-free rank of an abelian group ''A'' is the cardinality of a maximal linearly independent subset. The rank of ''A'' determines the size of the largest free abelian group contained in ''A''. If ''A'' is torsion-free then it embeds into a vector space over the rational numbers of dimension rank ''A''. For finitely generated abelian groups, rank is a strong invariant and every such group is determined up to isomorphism by its rank and torsion subgroup. Torsion-free abelian groups of rank 1 have been completely classified. However, the theory of abelian groups of higher rank is more involved. The term rank has a different meaning in the context of elementary abelian groups. Definition A subset of an abelian group ''A'' is linearly independent (over Z) if the only linear combination of these elements that is equal to zero is trivial: if : \sum_\alpha n_\alpha a_\alpha = 0, \quad n_\alpha\in\mathbb, where all but finitely many coef ...
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Necessary Condition
In logic and mathematics, necessity and sufficiency are terms used to describe a conditional or implicational relationship between two statements. For example, in the conditional statement: "If then ", is necessary for , because the truth of is guaranteed by the truth of (equivalently, it is impossible to have without ). Similarly, is sufficient for , because being true always implies that is true, but not being true does not always imply that is not true. In general, a necessary condition is one that must be present in order for another condition to occur, while a sufficient condition is one that produces the said condition. The assertion that a statement is a "necessary ''and'' sufficient" condition of another means that the former statement is true if and only if the latter is true. That is, the two statements must be either simultaneously true, or simultaneously false. In ordinary English (also natural language) "necessary" and "sufficient" indicate relations betw ...
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Quotient Group
A quotient group or factor group is a mathematical group obtained by aggregating similar elements of a larger group using an equivalence relation that preserves some of the group structure (the rest of the structure is "factored" out). For example, the cyclic group of addition modulo ''n'' can be obtained from the group of integers under addition by identifying elements that differ by a multiple of n and defining a group structure that operates on each such class (known as a congruence class) as a single entity. It is part of the mathematical field known as group theory. For a congruence relation on a group, the equivalence class of the identity element is always a normal subgroup of the original group, and the other equivalence classes are precisely the cosets of that normal subgroup. The resulting quotient is written G\,/\,N, where G is the original group and N is the normal subgroup. (This is pronounced G\bmod N, where \mbox is short for modulo.) Much of the importance o ...
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