Dirichlet's Theorem On Arithmetic Progressions - History

History

Euler stated that every arithmetic progression beginning with 1 contains an infinite number of primes. The theorem in the above form was first conjectured by Legendre in his attempted unsuccessful proofs of quadratic reciprocity and proved by Dirichlet in (Dirichlet 1837) with Dirichlet L-series. The proof is modeled on Euler's earlier work relating the Riemann zeta function to the distribution of primes. The theorem represents the beginning of rigorous analytic number theory.

Atle Selberg (1949) gave an elementary proof.

Read more about this topic:  Dirichlet's Theorem On Arithmetic Progressions

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    I believe that in the history of art and of thought there has always been at every living moment of culture a “will to renewal.” This is not the prerogative of the last decade only. All history is nothing but a succession of “crises”Mof rupture, repudiation and resistance.... When there is no “crisis,” there is stagnation, petrification and death. All thought, all art is aggressive.
    Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)

    Every member of the family of the future will be a producer of some kind and in some degree. The only one who will have the right of exemption will be the mother ...
    Ruth C. D. Havens, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)

    Classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated. Such is history; such is the history of civilization for thousands of years.
    Mao Zedong (1893–1976)