On a question of Mordell
Abstract
A Diophantine equation is a polynomial equation to which one seeks solutions in integers. There is a notable disparity between the difficulty of stating Diophantine equations and that of solving them. This feature was formalized in the 20th century by Matiyasevich's negative answer to Hilbert's tenth problem: It is impossible to tell whether some Diophantine equations have solutions or not. One need not look very far to find examples whose status is unknown. A striking example was noted by Mordell in 1953: The equation x3+y3+z3=3 has the solutions (1,1,1 ) and (4,4 ,−5 ) (and permutations); are there any others? This paper concludes a 65-y search with an affirmative answer to Mordell's question and strongly supports a related conjecture of Heath-Brown.
- Publication:
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
- Pub Date:
- March 2021
- DOI:
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2007.01209
- Bibcode:
- 2021PNAS..11822377B
- Keywords:
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- Mathematics - Number Theory;
- 11Y50 (Primary) 11D25 (Secondary)
- E-Print:
- updated to include solution for 579