In answer to a question posed by J. L Britton in (2), we sketch in this note an effective procedure to decide whether an arbitrary quadratic equation

with rational coefficients, has a solution in integers. A similar procedure will in fact decide whether such an equation over a (suitably specified) algebraic number field k has a solution in any (suitably specified) order in k; but we shall not burden the exposition by giving chapter and verse for this claim.

Let D = p1 … pm, where p1, …, pm are distinct rational primes ≡ 1(mod 8), and m is any positive integer. In this paper, we give a simple combinatorial criterion for the value of the Hecke L-function of the congruent elliptic curve ED2 : y2 = x3 − D2x at s = 1, divided by the period ω defined below, to be exactly divisible by 4m. As a corollary, we obtain a series of non-congruent numbers whose number of prime factors tends to infinity, and for which the corresponding elliptic curves have non-trivial 2-part of Tate–Shafarevich group, which greatly generalizes a result of Razar [8]. Our result is in accord with the predictions of the conjecture of Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer.

The Liénard–Chipart criterion for determining whether all the zeros of a real nth degree polynomial a(λ) have negative real parts involves calculation of only about half the Hurwitz determinants, the order of the largest being n − 1. It is shown, by using the companion matrix of a polynomial formed from a(λ), that the required determinants are equal to minors of a matrix whose order is ½ n or ½(n−1) according as n is even or odd. In either case this matrix is very easy to obtain A simple application of the result provides a criterion for a(λ) to be stable and aperiodic.

Mahler (5) proved in 1957 that for any rational a/q, where a, q are relatively prime integers with a > q ≥ 2, and any ε > 0, there exist only finitely many positive integers n such that ∥(a/q)n∥ < e−εn; here ∥x∥ denotes the distance of x from the nearest integer taken positively. In particular there exist only finitely many n such that

and, as Mahler observed, this implies that the number g(k) occurring in Waring's problem is given by

for all but a finite number of values of k. It would plainly be of interest to establish a bound for the exceptional k and this would follow from an upper estimate for the integers n for which (1) holds. But Mahler's work was based on Ridout's generalization of Roth's theorem and, as is well known, the latter result is ineffective.

The problem is considered as to whether, in accordance with Newtonian theory, energy can be transferred from one system to another across empty space by gravitational interaction alone. Familiar examples of apparent energy transfer by this means do not give an unambiguous answer since they involve some net change of gravitational potential energy and this is not localized in the theory. Two examples are given here of systems in which the potential energy is the same at the beginning and end of an operation that does produce a resultant energy transfer. The establishment of this result is significant as a preliminary to the discussion of energy transfer according to general relativity theory. The appendix gives a particular illustration of one of the examples that admits exact mathematical treatment.

1. Objective. It is possible to define order convergence on the vector lattice of all continuous functions of compact support on a locally compact topological space. Every measure is a linear form on this vector lattice. The object of this paper is to prove that a measure is such that every set of the first category of Baire has measure zero if and only if the measure is a linear form which is continuous in the order convergence.

1. Introduction. Révész(8) has shown that if (fn) is a sequence of random variables, bounded in L2, there exists a subsequence (fnk) and a random variable f in L2 such that converges almost surely whenever . Komlós(5) has shown that if (fn) is a sequence of random variables, bounded in L1, then there is a subsequence (A*) with the property that the Cesàro averages of any subsequence converge almost surely. Subsequently Chatterji(2) showed that if (fn) is bounded in LP (where 0 < p ≤ 2) then there is a subsequence (gk) = (fnk) and f in Lp such that

almost surely for every sub-subsequence. All of these results are examples of subsequence principles: a sequence of random variables, satisfying an appropriate moment condition, has a subsequence which satisfies some property enjoyed by sequences of independent identically distributed random variables. Recently Aldous(1), using tightness arguments, has shown that for a general class of properties such a subsequence principle holds: in particular, the results listed above are all special cases of Aldous' principal result.

All representations and characters studied in this paper are taken over the field of complex numbers, and all groups considered are finite. The reader unfamiliar with projective representations is referred to [8] for basic definitions and terminology.

It follows from the work of Artin and Hooley that, under assumption of the generalised Riemann hypothesis, the density of the set of primes q for which a given non-zero rational number r is a primitive root modulo q can be written as an infinite product ∏p δp of local factors δp reflecting the degree of the splitting field of Xp - r at the primes p, multiplied by a somewhat complicated factor that corrects for the ‘entanglement’ of these splitting fields.

We show how the correction factors arising in Artin's original primitive root problem and several of its generalisations can be interpreted as character sums describing the nature of the entanglement. The resulting description in terms of local contributions is so transparent that it greatly facilitates explicit computations, and naturally leads to non-vanishing criteria for the correction factors.

The method not only applies in the setting of Galois representations of the multiplicative group underlying Artin's conjecture, but also in the GL2-setting arising for elliptic curves. As an application, we compute the density of the set of primes of cyclic reduction for Serre curves.

In this paper the principles for the choice of a pair of standard solutions of a homogeneous linear differential equation of the second order, described in an earlier paper (2), are applied to Weber's equation

We consider sets of real numbers in [0, 1) with prescribed frequencies of partial quotients in their regular continued fraction expansions. It is shown that the Hausdorff dimensions of these sets, always bounded from below by 1/2, are given by a modified variational principle.

Let q be the finite field of q elements. Denote by Sr q the projective space of dimension r over q. In Sr,q, where r ≥ 2, a k-arc is defined (see [4]) as a set of k points such that no j + 2 lie in a Sj,q, for j = 1,2,…, r−1. (For a k-arc with k > r, this last condition holds for all j when it holds for j = r−1.) A rational curve Cn of order n in Sr,q, is the set

Many mathematical problems which do not yield a closed-form solution admit of a solution in the form of a power series; differential equations are an obvious example. The direct use of this power series is limited to the interior of its circle of convergence, and this places a restriction—often a severe restriction—on its usefulness. The method described in this paper enables this restriction to be alleviated in many cases; it also enables the convergence of a power series within its circle of convergence to be improved. The method is based on the Euler transformation.

The values of a free-electron eigenfunotion at the carbon nuclei of a conjugated hydrocarbon are found to satisfy a system of algebraic equations. These equations are similar in form to those obtained in the method known as the linear combination of atomic orbitale but only coincide with them for linear polyenes and benzene. The symmetry, degeneracy and energy of the eigenvectors of these free-electron equations correspond exactly to those of the free-electron wave functions found by the usual methods. From this correspondence, a theorem is deduced about the free-electron charge density in alternant hydrocarbons.

Legendrian contact homology (LCH) is a powerful non-classical invariant of Legendrian knots. Linearization makes the LCH computationally tractable at the expense of discarding nonlinear (and non-commutative) information. To recover some of the nonlinear information while preserving computability, we introduce invariant cup and Massey products – and, more generally, an A∞ structure – on the linearized LCH. We apply the products and A∞ structure in three ways: to find infinite families of Legendrian knots that are not isotopic to their Legendrian mirrors, to reinterpret the duality theorem of the fourth author in terms of the cup product, and to recover higher-order linearizations of the LCH.

Throughout the ground field is always supposed to be algebraically closed of characteristic zero. Let X be a smooth projective threefold of general type, denote by ϕm the m-canonical map of X which is nothing but the rational map naturally associated with the complete linear system [mid ]mKX[mid ]. Since, once given such a 3-fold X, ϕm is birational whenever m [Gt ] 0, quite an interesting thing to find is the optimal bound for such an m. This bound is important because it is not only crucial to the classification theory, but also strongly related to other problems. For example, it can be applied to determine the order of the birational automorphism group of X [21, remark in section 1]. To fix the terminology we say that ϕm is stably birational if ϕt is birational onto its image for all t [ges ] m. It is well known that the parallel problem in the surface case was solved by Bombieri [1] and others. In the 3-dimensional case, many authors have studied the problem, in quite different ways. Because, in this paper, we are interested in the results obtained by Hanamura [7], we do not plan to mention more references here. According to 3-dimensional MMP, X has a minimal model which is a normal projective 3-fold with only ℚ-factorial terminal singularities. Though X may have many minimal models, the singularity index (namely the canonical index) of any of its minimal models is uniquely determined by X. Denote by r the canonical index of minimal models of X. When r = 1 we know that ϕ6 is stably birational by virtue of [3, 6, 13 and 14]. When r [ges ] 2, Hanamura proved the following theorem.

The ancient and continuing art of change ringing, or campanology (how the British ring church bells), is studied from a mathematical viewpoint. An extent on n bells is regarded as a hamiltonian cycle in a Cayley colour graph for the symmetric group Sn, embedded on an appropriate surface. Two methods for variable n (Plain Bob for all n and Grandsire for n =; 3 (mod 4)) are discussed, and a new method for n odd is introduced. All minimus methods (n = 4) and five doubles methods (n = 5) are depicted, one of these being the new No Call Doubles.

Casson–Gordon invariants were first used to prove that certain algebraically slice knots in S3 are not slice knots [2, 3]. Since then they have been applied to a wide range of problems, including embedding problems and questions relating to boundary links [2, 10, 21, 25]. The most general Casson–Gordon invariant takes its value in L0(ℚ(ζd)(t)) ⊗ ℚ; here ζd denotes a primitive dth root of unity. Litherland [20] observed that one could usually tensor with ℤ(2) instead of ℚ, and in this way preserve the 2-torsion in the Witt group. He then constructed new examples of non-slice genus two knots which were detected with torsion classes in L0(ℚ(ζd)) ⊗ ℤ(2) modulo the image of L0(ℚ(ζd)) ⊗ ℤ(2).

We present a method to construct examples of K3 surfaces of geometric Picard rank 1. Our approach is a refinement of that of R. van Luijk. It is based on an analysis of the Galois module structure on étale cohomology. This allows us to abandon the original limitation to cases of Picard rank 2 after reduction modulo p. Furthermore, the use of Galois data enables us to construct examples that require significantly less computation time.

In the solution of certain boundary-value problems by means of complex integrals or by means of the Laplace transformation, transcendental equations of the form

arise, and it is then usually necessary to show that this equation has no roots in the right half of the complex z-plane.