a note on strongpstrong#180;epin’s counter examples to the hasse principle for.pdfVIP

A Note on P´epin’s counter examples to the Hasse principle for curves of genus 1 Franz Lemmermeyer Bilkent University 06800 Bilkent, Ankara September 11, 2003 Abstract In a series of articles published in the C.R. Paris more than a century ago, T. P´epin announced a list of “theorems” concerning the solvability of diophantine equations of the type ax4 + by4 = z2 . In this article, we show how to prove these claims using the structure of 2-class groups of imaginary quadratic number fields. We will also look at a few related results from a modern point of view. 1 Introduction Jean Fran¸cois Th´eophile P´epin was born on May 14, 1826 in Cluses (Haut- Savoie, France). He joined the Jesuits in 1846, and from 1850–1856 and 1862– 1871 he was Professor of Mathematics at various Jesuit colleges. In 1880 he went to Rome (and started getting his articles published in journals that are very hard to find today), and he died on April 3, 1904, in Lyon. Apart from working on diophantine equations such as those discussed below, he studied problems related with reciprocity laws (cubic, quintic and septic residues, in particular, as well as the history of quadratic reciprocity). Today, P´epin is almost forgotten; but, as C. Goldstein [8] remarked when she wrote about a group of French mathematicians containing among others Desboves, Genocchi, Lucas and P´epin: Il est tentant de nos jours de ne pas prendre ces mathematiciens au serieux, mais ce serait peux appropri´e and A. Weil [29] makes a similar observation when he writes that the contri- bu