nLab Diophantine equation

Contents

Contents

Idea

A Diophantine equation is a polynomial equation over the integers, hence an equation of the form

P(x 1,x 2,,x n)=0 P(x_1, x_2, \cdots , x_n) = 0

where P(x 1,x 2,,x n)[x 1,,x m]P(x_1, x_2, \cdots , x_n) \in \mathbb{Z}[x_1, \cdots, x_m] is a polynomial in nn variables with integer coefficients, and where solutions are considered for these variables taking values in the integers.

These are equations of central interest in number theory.

Spaces of solutions of Diophantine equations may be thought of as varieties in arithmetic geometry.

References

Last revised on March 10, 2015 at 18:13:42. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.