Mathematics Colloquium



Department of Mathematics
University of Nebraska at Omaha


WHEN:
Monday April 18, 2:30-3:30PM

WHERE:
Durham Science Center, Room 115

WHAT:


Dr. David P. Roberts

University of Minnesota--Morris


will give a talk on

A Database of p-adic Fields


ABSTRACT:
Number theorists have long known that it is useful to attack problems ``one prime at a time." To do this, one replaces the rational number field Q by the p-adic fields Q_2, Q_3, Q_5, ..., where in Q_p the only prime of relevance is p. An irreducible polynomial f(x) in Q[x] typically becomes reducible in most Q_p[x]. How f(x) factors in Q_p[x] is number-theoretically important, especially in the complicated case that p divides the discriminant of f(x). The talk will be about the on-line database of p-adic fields at this web site, created in joint work with John W. Jones of Arizona State University. It will discuss the conceptual underpinnings of this database and how the database can be used in practice. The talk is intended for a general mathematical audience.


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