Abstract
We have been following a single thread that began with the Greek problem of characterizing the perfect numbers and has led through Fermat’s observation, Euler’s theorem, the problem of determining the value of the Legendre symbol, and finally into understanding the multiplicative structure of modular arithmetic. The thread does not end there, but it is time for us to leave it and return to the ancient Greeks to pick up another.
“(Lord William Brouncker), that Most Nobel Man, after having considered this matter, saw fit to bring this quantity by a method of infinitesimals peculiar to him.”
- John Wallis
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References
Harold M. Edwards, Fermat’s Last Theorem, Springer-Verlag, New York, 1977.
Andre Weil, Number Theory, An approach through history, from Hammurapi to Legendre, Birkhauser, Boston, 1984.
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© 1989 Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.
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Bressoud, D.M. (1989). Continued Fractions. In: Factorization and Primality Testing. Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-4544-5_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-4544-5_10
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-8871-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-4612-4544-5
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