In mathematics, Minkowski's theorem is the statement that every convex set in which is symmetric with respect to the origin and which has volume greater than contains a non-zero integer point. The theorem was proved by Hermann Minkowski in 1889 and became the foundation of the branch of number theory called the geometry of numbers. It can be extended from the integers to any lattice and to any symmetric convex set with volume greater than , where denotes the covolume of the lattice.
Geometry of numbers is the part of number theory which uses geometry for the study of algebraic numbers. Typically, a ring of algebraic integers is viewed as a lattice in and the study of these lattices provides fundamental information on algebraic numbers. The geometry of numbers was initiated by Hermann Minkowski (1910).
Discrete geometry and combinatorial geometry are branches of geometry that study combinatorial properties and constructive methods of discrete geometric objects. Most questions in discrete geometry involve finite or discrete sets of basic geometric objects, such as points, lines, planes, circles, spheres, polygons, and so forth. The subject focuses on the combinatorial properties of these objects, such as how they intersect one another, or how they may be arranged to cover a larger object.
In mathematics, Helmut Hasse's local–global principle, also known as the Hasse principle, is the idea that one can find an integer solution to an equation by using the Chinese remainder theorem to piece together solutions modulo powers of each different prime number. This is handled by examining the equation in the completions of the rational numbers: the real numbers and the p-adic numbers. A more formal version of the Hasse principle states that certain types of equations have a rational solution if and only if they have a solution in the real numbers and in the p-adic numbers for each prime p.
In mathematics, Diophantine geometry is the study of points of algebraic varieties with coordinates in the integers, rational numbers, and their generalizations. These generalizations typically are fields that are not algebraically closed, such as number fields, finite fields, function fields, and p-adic fields. It is a sub-branch of arithmetic geometry and is one approach to the theory of Diophantine equations, formulating questions about such equations in terms of algebraic geometry.
Klaus Friedrich Roth was a German-born British mathematician who won the Fields Medal for proving Roth's theorem on the Diophantine approximation of algebraic numbers. He was also a winner of the De Morgan Medal and the Sylvester Medal, and a Fellow of the Royal Society.
In geometry and mathematical group theory, a unimodular lattice is an integral lattice of determinant 1 or −1. For a lattice in n-dimensional Euclidean space, this is equivalent to requiring that the volume of any fundamental domain for the lattice be 1.
Vojtěch Jarník was a Czech mathematician who worked for many years as a professor and administrator at Charles University, and helped found the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. He is the namesake of Jarník's algorithm for minimum spanning trees.
In number theory, Dirichlet's theorem on Diophantine approximation, also called Dirichlet's approximation theorem, states that for any real numbers and , with , there exist integers and such that and
In mathematics, the Minkowski–Hlawka theorem is a result on the lattice packing of hyperspheres in dimension n > 1. It states that there is a lattice in Euclidean space of dimension n, such that the corresponding best packing of hyperspheres with centres at the lattice points has density Δ satisfying
In mathematics, Siegel's theorem on integral points states that for a smooth algebraic curve C of genus g defined over a number field K, presented in affine space in a given coordinate system, there are only finitely many points on C with coordinates in the ring of integers O of K, provided g > 0.
In mathematics, the Hermite constant, named after Charles Hermite, determines how short an element of a lattice in Euclidean space can be.
In geometry, Keller's conjecture is the conjecture that in any tiling of Euclidean space by identical hypercubes there are two cubes that meet face to face. For instance, as shown in the illustration, in any tiling of the plane by identical squares, some two squares must meet edge to edge.
Hans Frederick Blichfeldt (1873–1945) was a Danish-American mathematician at Stanford University, known for his contributions to group theory, the geometry of numbers, sphere packing, and quadratic forms.
In mathematics, Minkowski's second theorem is a result in the geometry of numbers about the values taken by a norm on a lattice and the volume of its fundamental cell.
Carl Douglas Olds was a New Zealand-born American mathematician specializing in number theory.
In geometry, the distance set of a collection of points is the set of distances between distinct pairs of points. Thus, it can be seen as the generalization of a difference set, the set of distances in collections of numbers.
Giuliana P. Davidoff is an American mathematician specializing in number theory and expander graphs. She is the Robert L. Rooke Professor of Mathematics and the chair of mathematics and statistics at Mount Holyoke College.
Algebra and Tiling: Homomorphisms in the Service of Geometry is a mathematics textbook on the use of group theory to answer questions about tessellations and higher dimensional honeycombs, partitions of the Euclidean plane or higher-dimensional spaces into congruent tiles. It was written by Sherman K. Stein and Sándor Szabó, and published by the Mathematical Association of America as volume 25 of their Carus Mathematical Monographs series in 1994. It won the 1998 Beckenbach Book Prize, and was reprinted in paperback in 2008.
