0000000000246353
AUTHOR
Albrecht Pfister
showing 6 related works from this author
Zur Theorie der quadratischen Formen �ber formalreellen K�rpern
1977
Quadratic Lattices in Function Fields of Genus 0
1993
Beweis des Krullschen Durchschnittsatzes f�r den Wittring
1971
Tsen–Lang Theory for Cpi-fields
1995
Multiplicative Quadratic Forms
1995
An elementary proof of Hilbertʼs theorem on ternary quartics
2012
Abstract In 1888, Hilbert proved that every nonnegative quartic form f = f ( x , y , z ) with real coefficients is a sum of three squares of quadratic forms. His proof was ahead of its time and used advanced methods from topology and algebraic geometry. Up to now, no elementary proof is known. Here we present a completely new approach. Although our proof is not easy, it uses only elementary techniques. As a by-product, it gives information on the number of representations f = p 1 2 + p 2 2 + p 3 2 of f up to orthogonal equivalence. We show that this number is 8 for generically chosen f, and that it is 4 when f is chosen generically with a real zero. Although these facts were known, there wa…