Reciprocity laws: from Euler to Eisenstein

Franz Lemmermeyer9783540669579, 3540669574

This book is about the development of reciprocity laws, starting from conjectures of Euler and discussing the contributions of Legendre, Gauss, Dirichlet, Jacobi, and Eisenstein. Readers knowledgeable in basic algebraic number theory and Galois theory will find detailed discussions of the reciprocity laws for quadratic, cubic, quartic, sextic and octic residues, rational reciprocity laws, and Eisenstein’s reciprocity law. An extensive bibliography will be of interest to readers interested in the history of reciprocity laws or in the current research in this area.