this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2023
15 points (94.1% liked)

math

828 readers
1 users here now

General community for all things mathematics on @lemmy.world

Submit link and text posts about anything at all related to mathematics.

Questions about mathematical topics are allowed, but NO HOMEWORK HELP. Communities for general math and homework help should be firmly delineated just as they were on reddit.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
mrh
 

Is there a pattern in p?

top 1 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Artisian 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Indeed! 2, as always, is a distraction. As the only even prime, it's the oddest of them all.

The important thing is that -1 is a square modulo p. Once it is you can use the (relatively fun and easy to do) Hensel's Lemma to compute exactly what the sqrt of -1 is in that particular p-adic ring.

So for which primes is -1 a square? A classic result of number theory states that these are the primes p such that p = 1 modulo 4. The primes like 5, 13, and 29 will have square roots of -1 in their p-adic rings, while 7, 11, and 31 will not.

Lots of rewarding math to explore around this question.