Related papers: How Fermat found extrema

In this paper, we obtain several new factorization results for certain classes of polynomials having integer coefficients. In doing so, we use the information about prime factorization of the value taken up by such polynomials and their…

We give a simple direct proof of Fermat's two squares theorem. Our argument uses no intricate notions or ideas; one might say that it is a proof by careful bookkeeping. As such, the proof may be particularly easy to comprehend by students…

We give again the proof of several classical results concerning the cyclotomic approach to Fermat's last theorem using exclusively class field theory (essentially the reflection theorems), without any calculations. The fact that this is…

The roots of any polynomial of degree m with integer coefficients, can be computed by manipulation of sequences made from 2m distinct symbols and counting the different symbols in the sequences. This method requires only 'primitive'…

We prove that a bivariate polynomial f with exactly t non-zero terms, restricted to a real line {y=ax+b}, either has at most 6t-4 zeroes or vanishes over the whole line. As a consequence, we derive an alternative algorithm to decide whether…

In this paper methods for simultaneous finding all roots of generalized polynomials are developed. These methods are related to the case when the roots are multiple. They possess cubic rate of convergence and they are as labour-consuming as…

Given integers $\ell > m >0$, we define monic polynomials $X_n$, $Y_n$, and $Z_n$ with the property that $\mu$ is a zero of $X_n$ if and only if the triple $(\mu,\mu+m,\mu+\ell)$ satisfies $x^n + y^n = z^n$. It is shown that the…

We give a separation bound for the complex roots of a trinomial $f \in \mathbb{Z}[X]$. The logarithm of the inverse of our separation bound is polynomial in the size of the sparse encoding of $f$; in particular, it is polynomial in $\log…

Some known results for locating the roots of polynomials are extended to the case of matrix polynomials. In particular, a theorem by A.E. Pellet [Bulletin des Sciences Math\'ematiques, (2), vol 5 (1881), pp.393-395], some results of D.A.…

We present a new, far simpler family of counter-examples to Kushnirenko's Conjecture. Along the way, we illustrate a computer-assisted approach to finding sparse polynomial systems with maximally many real roots, thus shedding light on the…

We prove that any pair of bivariate trinomials has at most 5 isolated roots in the positive quadrant. The best previous upper bounds independent of the polynomial degrees counted only non-degenerate roots and even then gave much larger…

Fermat's Last Theorem is proved by using the philosophical and mathematical knowledge of 1637 when the French mathematician Pierre de Fermat claimed to have a truly marvelous proof of his conjecture. Our approach consists of setting three…

In this note, we provide explicit expressions for the projections onto the graph of a quadratic polynomial. The projections are obtained by examining the critical points of the associated quartic polynomial, that is, the roots of the cubic…

We are interested in irrationality of roots for seven important families of polynomials : Tchebichef polynomials, Legendre polynomials, Laguerre polynomials, Hermite polynomials, Bessel polynomials, Bernoulli polynomials and Euler…

We present algorithmic, complexity and implementation results for the problem of isolating the real roots of a univariate polynomial in $B_{\alpha} \in L[y]$, where $L=\QQ(\alpha)$ is a simple algebraic extension of the rational numbers. We…

In this article, we consider the polynomials of the form $f(x)=a_0+a_1x+a_2x^2+\cdots+a_nx^n\in \mathbb{Z}[x],$ where $|a_0|=|a_1|+\dots+|a_n|$ and $|a_0|$ is a prime. We show that these polynomials have a cyclotomic factor whenever…

While the separation (the minimal nonzero distance) between roots of a polynomial is a classical topic, its absolute counterpart (the minimal nonzero distance between their absolute values) does not seem to have been studied much. We…

In 1888, Hilbert proved that every non-negative 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…

We introduce the ring of Fermat reals, an extension of the real field containing nilpotent infinitesimals. The construction takes inspiration from Smooth Infinitesimal Analysis (SIA), but provides a powerful theory of actual infinitesimals…

We show that an elementary proof of Fermat's Last Theorem (FLT) exists. Our paper also extends the scope of FLT from integers to all rational numbers.