44 NAW 5/1 nr.1 maart 2000 Artin reciprocity and Mersenne primes H.W. Lenstra, Jr., P. Stevenhagen H.W. Lenstra, Jr. P. Stevenhagen Department of Mathematics # 3840, University of Mathematisch Instituut, Universiteit Leiden, California, Berkeley, CA 94720–3840, U.S.A. Postbus 9512, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands Mathematisch Instituut, Universiteit Leiden,
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[email protected] Artin reciprocity and Emil Artin was born on March 3, 1898 in Vienna, as the son of an the factor 2 in 2ab is interpreted as 1 + 1. It takes an especially art dealer and an opera singer, and he died on December 20, 1962 simple form if the term 2ab drops out: in Hamburg. He was one of the founding fathers of modern al- 2 2 2 gebra. Van der Waerden acknowledged his debt to Artin and to (a + b) = a + b if 2 = 0. Emmy Noether (1882–1935) on the title page of his Moderne Alge- Likewise, the general ring-theoretic identity bra (1930–31), which indeed was originally conceived to be jointly written with Artin. The single volume that contains Artin’s col- (a + b)3 = a3 + 3a2b + 3ab2 + b3 lected papers, published in 1965 [1], is one of the other classics of twentieth century mathematics. (where 3 = 1 + 1 + 1) assumes the simple form Artin’s two greatest accomplishments are to be found in alge- 3 3 3 braic number theory. Here he introduced the Artin L-functions (a + b) = a + b if 3 = 0.