MINKOWSKI, HERMANN. - DOCTORIAL THESIS

Untersuchungen über quadratische Formen. I. Bestimmung der Anzahl verschiedener Formen, welche ein gegebenes Genus enthält.

(Stockholm, F.& G. Beier), 1885. 4to. Orig. printed wrappers (to Acta Math. 7:3). Extracted from "Acta Mathematica", Vol. 7. Pp. . Clean and fine.

First printing of Minkowski's doctorial dissertation, which he received from Königsberg.
"From his Grand Prix paper (on five squares integers) to his last work Minkowski never ceased to return to the arithmetic of quadratic forms in n variables ("n-ary forms"). Ever since Gauss' pioneering work on binary quadratic forms at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the generalization of his results to n-ary forms had been the goal of many mathematicians including Eisenstein, Hermite, Smith, Jordan, and Poincaré. Minkowski' most importent contributions to the theory were for quadratic forms with rational coefficients, through a system of three invariants of the form and (in a later paper) a paper from 1905."(DSB).

Order-nr.: 41898