The theory cf quadratic forms and the intimately related theory of sym metrie bilinear forms have a lang and rich his tory, highlighted by the work of Legendre, Gauss, Minkowski, and Hasse. (Compare [Dickson] and [Bourbaki, 24, p. 185].) Our exposition will concentrate on the rela tively recent developments which begin with and are inspired by Witt's 1937 paper "Theorie der quadratischen Formen in beliebigen Körpern." We will be particularly interested in the work of A. Pfister and M. Knebusch. However, some older material will be described, particularly in Chapter II. The presentation is based on lectures by Milnor at the Institute for Ad vanced Study, and at Haverford College under the Phillips Lecture Pro gram, during the Fall of 1970, as weIl as Iectures at Princeton University il1 1966. We want to thank J. Cunningham, M. Knebusch, M. Kneser, A. Rosenberg, W. Scharlau and J.-P. Serre for helpful suggestions and corrections. Prerequisites. The reader should be familiar with the rudiments of algebra., incJuding for example the concept of tensor product for mo dules over a commutative ring. A few individual sections will require quite a bit more. The logical relationship between the various chapters can be roughly described by the diagram below. There are also five appendices, largely self-contained, which treat special topics. I. Arbitrary commutative rings I H. The ring of V. Miscellaneous IIl. Fields integers examples IV. Dedekind domains Contents Chapter r. Basie Coneepts ...

A Mathematician Said Who Can Quote Me a Theorem that’s True? For the ones that I Know Are Simply not So, When the Characteristic is Two! This pretty limerick ?rst came to my ears in May 1998 during a talk by T.Y. Lam 1 on ?eld invariants from the theory of quadratic forms. It is—poetic exaggeration allowed—a suitable motto for this monograph. What is it about? At the beginning of the seventies I drew up a specialization theoryofquadraticandsymmetricbilinear formsover ?elds[32].Let? : K? L?? be a place. Then one can assign a form? (?)toaform? over K in a meaningful way ? if? has “good reduction” with respect to? (see§1.1). The basic idea is to simply apply the place? to the coe?cients of?, which must therefore be in the valuation ring of?. The specialization theory of that time was satisfactory as long as the ?eld L, and therefore also K, had characteristic 2. It served me in the ?rst place as the foundation for a theory of generic splitting of quadratic forms [33], [34]. After a very modest beginning, this theory is now in full bloom. It became important for the understanding of quadratic forms over ?elds, as can be seen from the book [26]of Izhboldin–Kahn–Karpenko–Vishik for instance. One should note that there exists a theoryof(partial)genericsplittingofcentralsimplealgebrasandreductivealgebraic groups, parallel to the theory of generic splitting of quadratic forms (see [29] and the literature cited there).

This book is a comprehensive study of the algebraic theory of quadratic forms, from classical theory to recent developments, including results and proofs that have never been published. The book is written from the viewpoint of algebraic geometry and includes the theory of quadratic forms over fields of characteristic two, with proofs that are characteristic independent whenever possible. For some results both classical and geometric proofs are given. Part I includes classical algebraic theory of quadratic and bilinear forms and answers many questions that have been raised in the early stages of the development of the theory. Assuming only a basic course in algebraic geometry, Part II presents the necessary additional topics from algebraic geometry including the theory of Chow groups, Chow motives, and Steenrod operations. These topics are used in Part III to develop a modern geometric theory of quadratic forms.

This open access textbook presents a comprehensive treatment of the arithmetic theory of quaternion algebras and orders, a subject with applications in diverse areas of mathematics. Written to be accessible and approachable to the graduate student reader, this text collects and synthesizes results from across the literature. Numerous pathways offer explorations in many different directions, while the unified treatment makes this book an essential reference for students and researchers alike. Divided into five parts, the book begins with a basic introduction to the noncommutative algebra underlying the theory of quaternion algebras over fields, including the relationship to quadratic forms. An in-depth exploration of the arithmetic of quaternion algebras and orders follows. The third part considers analytic aspects, starting with zeta functions and then passing to an idelic approach, offering a pathway from local to global that includes strong approximation. Applications of unit groups of quaternion orders to hyperbolic geometry and low-dimensional topology follow, relating geometric and topological properties to arithmetic invariants. Arithmetic geometry completes the volume, including quaternionic aspects of modular forms, supersingular elliptic curves, and the moduli of QM abelian surfaces. Quaternion Algebras encompasses a vast wealth of knowledge at the intersection of many fields. Graduate students interested in algebra, geometry, and number theory will appreciate the many avenues and connections to be explored. Instructors will find numerous options for constructing introductory and advanced courses, while researchers will value the all-embracing treatment. Readers are assumed to have some familiarity with algebraic number theory and commutative algebra, as well as the fundamentals of linear algebra, topology, and complex analysis. More advanced topics call upon additional background, as noted, though essential concepts and motivation are recapped throughout.

From its birth (in Babylon?) till 1936 the theory of quadratic forms dealt almost exclusively with forms over the real field, the complex field or the ring of integers. Only as late as 1937 were the foundations of a theory over an arbitrary field laid. This was in a famous paper by Ernst Witt. Still too early, apparently, because it took another 25 years for the ideas of Witt to be pursued, notably by Albrecht Pfister, and expanded into a full branch of algebra. Around 1960 the development of algebraic topology and algebraic K-theory led to the study of quadratic forms over commutative rings and hermitian forms over rings with involutions. Not surprisingly, in this more general setting, algebraic K-theory plays the role that linear algebra plays in the case of fields. This book exposes the theory of quadratic and hermitian forms over rings in a very general setting. It avoids, as far as possible, any restriction on the characteristic and takes full advantage of the functorial aspects of the theory. The advantage of doing so is not only aesthetical: on the one hand, some classical proofs gain in simplicity and transparency, the most notable examples being the results on low-dimensional spinor groups; on the other hand new results are obtained, which went unnoticed even for fields, as in the case of involutions on 16-dimensional central simple algebras. The first chapter gives an introduction to the basic definitions and properties of hermitian forms which are used throughout the book.

Exploration of quadratic forms over rational numbers and rational integers offers elementary introduction. Covers quadratic forms over local fields, forms with integral coefficients, reduction theory for definite forms, more. 1968 edition.