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Repeated discriminants: the discriminant of a quadratic field uniquely identifies it, but this is not true, in general, for higher-degree number fields. For example, there are two non-isomorphic cubic fields of discriminant 3969. They are obtained by adjoining a root of the polynomial x 3 − 21x + 28 or x 3 − 21x − 35, respectively.
Geometrically, the discriminant of a quadratic form in three variables is the equation of a quadratic projective curve. The discriminant is zero if and only if the curve is decomposed in lines (possibly over an algebraically closed extension of the field). A quadratic form in four variables is the equation of a projective surface.
In general a quadratic field of field discriminant can be obtained as a subfield of a cyclotomic field of -th roots of unity. This expresses the fact that the conductor of a quadratic field is the absolute value of its discriminant, a special case of the conductor-discriminant formula .
For quadratic equations with rational coefficients, if the discriminant is a square number, then the roots are rational—in other cases they may be quadratic irrationals. If the discriminant is zero, then there is exactly one real root − b 2 a , {\displaystyle -{\frac {b}{2a}},} sometimes called a repeated or double root or two equal roots.
Another instance of quadratic forms is Pell's equation =. Binary quadratic forms are closely related to ideals in quadratic fields. This allows the class number of a quadratic field to be calculated by counting the number of reduced binary quadratic forms of a given discriminant.
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The idea of the proof of the class number formula is most easily seen when K = Q(i).In this case, the ring of integers in K is the Gaussian integers.. An elementary manipulation shows that the residue of the Dedekind zeta function at s = 1 is the average of the coefficients of the Dirichlet series representation of the Dedekind zeta function.
If the characteristic of GF(q) is odd, the discriminant Δ = b 2 − 4ac indicates the number of roots in GF(q) and the classical quadratic formula gives the roots. However, when GF(q) has even characteristic (i.e., q = 2 h for some positive integer h), these formulas are no longer applicable.