English

An elementary proof of Hilbert's theorem on ternary quartics: Some complements

Algebraic Geometry 2024-12-23 v2

Abstract

In 1888, Hilbert proved that every nonnegative quartic form f=f(x,y,z)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. In a 2012 paper we presented a new approach that used only elementary techniques. In this note we add some further simplifications to this proof.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2411.08479,
  title  = {An elementary proof of Hilbert's theorem on ternary quartics: Some complements},
  author = {Albrecht Pfister and Claus Scheiderer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.08479},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

corrected a few typos