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La Contribución de Euler A La Teoría de Números
La Contribución de Euler A La Teoría de Números
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EULERS CONTRIBUTION TO NUMBER THEORY 453
1. Introduction
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454 THE MATHEMATICAL GAZETTE
Let us begin with Fermat's 'Little Theorem', which was given in a letter
dated 18 October 1640 and states that, for a prime /?, the congruence aF = a
(mod/?) is satisfied by every a. This was generalised by Euler in 1760 to the
famous Fermat-Euler theorem
a*m) = 1 (modm),
where (p (m) counts the numbers up to m which are coprime with m, and the
congruence is satisfied by every such number a; this important result forces
us to consider the multiplicative group of integers modulo m, and indeed
marks the beginning of group theory. Fermât discovered his theorem from
'additive' considerations involving the binomial expansion. More
specifically, all the binomial coeffcients in the expansion
(a + If = d + 11 +<*<p
XW(íV~*
are multiples of /?, and the required result follows by induction on n. This
argument was presented by Euler in 1742; it can also be established using
the 'multinomial formula', as Leibniz (1646-1716) did. Even Fermât would
be aware that the result is related to what is now known as Lagrange's
theorem, namely that the order of a group is a multiple of the order of any
subgroup. Taking a to be prime to p, if we divide the numbers I, a, a2, ...
by p the remainders must repeat themselves, leading to the smallest positive
n such that an = 1 (mod/?). Consequently the p - 1 congruence classes
modulo p fall into disjoint sets each having n elements, so that n must divide
/7-1. This is the multiplicative proof obtained by Euler around 1750, and
he says that it is the better one since the argument easily generalises to the
Fermat-Euler theorem. Elementary number theory texts give the following
simpler proof: Let h = 0 (m), and take a reduced residue system b\, b2, • • •»
bh modulo m, that is a collection of h incongruent numbers coprime with m.
If a is coprime with m then abu ab2, ... , abh also form such a system, and
therefore ab\ab2... abh = b\b2... bh (modm). Cancellation of the common
factor b\b2... bh then delivers the required result ah = 1 (modm). This
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EULER'S CONTRIBUTION TO NUMBER THEORY 455
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456 THE MATHEMATICAL GAZETTE
(¿ + b2 + C2 + ¿2)(p2 + q2 +
where
A = ap + bq + cr + ds, B = aq - bp - cs + dr,
C = ar + bs - cp - dq, D = as - br + cq - dq.
Armed with this, his problem now was to show that primes are sums of four
squares. This eluded him and the prize for the four-squares theorem was
claimed in 1770 by Lagrange, who gave much due credit to Euler. His
earlier failure may perhaps be explained by his investing too much effort in
trying to show that a prime can be decomposed as a sum of two members of
W, instead of taking on the problem more directly. With hindsight this was
bad tactics because, rather than being helpful, the rich structure within W
may actually obscure the interrelationship between all four squares. Euler
simplified Lagrange's proof, thereby also simplifying the argument for the
two squares case, and these are the elegant proofs that we find in textbooks.
Indeed, when reading them without knowing the background story, one is
left wondering how, after developing all the tools, Euler could have missed
the four-squares theorem in the first place.
Concerning Fermat's notorious 'Last Theorem' that x" + y" = f has
no non-trivial solutions if n > 2, Euler announced to Goldbach in 1753 that
he had dealt with the cases n = 4 and 3. The solution for the more
interesting case n = 3 is based on the theory of the form x2 + 3V2; the
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EULER'S CONTRIBUTION TO NUMBER THEORY 457
a2 +...
where the partial quotients a¡ are integers, positive for / > 0. We wri
a = [a0, fli, ... ], and the truncated expression at the ith step is then
rational number /?//#/ called the /th convergent for a. Although some fac
on such expansions were known to, and used by, the Indian astronom
Aryabhata (circa 450), Bombelli (1526-1573) and Huygens (1629-1695),
is clear that Euler was quite unaware of their work. In fact Euler was the
first person to give a general account of the subject, which initially appeare
in his correspondence in connection with Riccati's differential equation. H
soon became interested in them for their own sake, observing that rationa
numbers have finite continued fractions obtained by a process identical wi
the Euclidean algorithm, that periodic continued fractions represen
quadratic irrationals, and noting also that the expansion of any real numbe
into a continued fraction supplies the best rational approximations for tha
number. Besides deriving the iterative formulae for p¡ and q¿ in terms of th
partial quotients at he also gave 'Euler's rule' for the explicit expressions fo
them as sums of certain products formed out of these a¡. It was natural fo
him to compare the approximations to \ÍÑ from his new-found theory t
those obtained from the solutions to Pell's equation, and he discovered th
the two algorithms are in fact identical. It was inevitable that he als
discovered the 'palindromic' property of the expansion, namely that the
expansion has the form
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458 THE MATHEMATICAL GAZETTE
5. Partitio Numerorum
ļļ(l - x) = 1 - x - x
k= 1
The series here may be written as yZ(-l)nxni3n + l)/2, summed over all the
integers n; it is the first appearance in the literature of what is now known as
a theta function. Thus Euler had discovered his famous 'pentagonal number
theorem', which was then used to derive an interesting recurrence formula
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EULERS CONTRIBUTION TO NUMBER THEORY 459
Indeed many
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the Latin pro
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460 THE MATHEMATICAL GAZETTE
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EULER'S CONTRIBUTION TO NUMBER THEORY 46 1
7. A great mathematician
So how good was Euler the mathematician? Three hundred years later,
perhaps even mere mortals can utter some form of an assessment.
Mathematicians usually say that there are only three all-time greats:
Archimedes (2877-212 BC), Newton (1642-1727) and Gauss, so that Euler
failed to get into the medals. However, many will also award him a special
prize for sheer tenacity and industry. Even from the short account given
here, it is clear that he never abandoned a problem after it had once aroused
his curiosity. Indeed he would go back to it again and again over many
years, trying to find a proof, or a more natural one. Euler also seemed to
care little whether he or someone else made the discovery - he would be
delighted to do more just to either clarify, or improve on, his own or
someone else's theorem, as exemplified in the four-squares theorem of
Lagrange. Incidentally Weil [2] wrote that 'Much if not all of Lagrange' s
work is based on that of Euler; this applies in particular to his contributions
to number theory.' There are, of course, famous problems that eluded Euler
all his life; for example the law of quadratic reciprocity, which he himself
had formulated and he would dearly love to have seen just one of the many
proofs.
In 1745 his old teacher Johann Bernoulli (1667-1748), not a modest
man as a rule, addressed him as mathematicorum princeps, the first person
to be honoured with such a title - Lagrange and Gauss were the only two
successors to the title.
References
1. H. Davenport, The Higher Arithmetic (6th edn), Cambridge University
Press (1998).
2. André Weil, Number Theory: an approach through history; From
Hammurrapi to Legendre, Birkhäuser (1983).
3. L. Euler, Introduction to Analysis of the Infinite, Book I; (translated by
John D. Blanton) Springer- Verlag (1988).
4. D. R. Heath-Brown, Fermat's two squares theorem, Invariant (Journal
of the Undergraduate Society of students of Mathematics at Oxford
University) (1984) pp. 3-5.
5. D. Zagier, A one-sentence proof that every prime p = 1 (mod 4) is a
sum of two squares, Amer. Math. Monthly, 97 (1990) p. 144.
PETER SHIU
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