Symmetric Bilinear Forms (Ergebnisse der Mathematik und ihrer Grenzgebiete. 2. Folge)

The theory of quadratic forms and the intimately related theory of symmetric bilinear forms have a long and rich history, highlighted by the work of Legendre, Gauss, Minkowski, and Hasse. (Compare [Dickson] and [Bourbaki, 24, p. 185].) Our exposition will concentrate on the relatively recent developments which begin with and are inspired by Witt's 1937 paper ''Theorie der quadratischen Formen in beliebigen Korpern.'' We will be particularly interested in the work of A. Pfister and M. Knebusch. However, some older material will be described, particularly in ChapterII. The presentation is based on lectures by Milnor at the Institute for Advanced Study, and at Haverford College under the Phillips Lecture Program, during the Fall of 1970, as well as lectures at Princeton University in 1966 The theory cf quadratic forms and the intimately related theory of sym metrie bilinear forms have a lang and rich his tory, highlighted by the work of Legendre, Gauss, Minkowski, and Hasse. (Compare [Dickson] and [Bourbaki, 24, p. 185].) Our exposition will concentrate on the rela tively recent developments which begin with and are inspired by Witt's 1937 paper "Theorie der quadratischen Formen in beliebigen Körpern." We will be particularly interested in the work of A. Pfister and M. Knebusch. However, some older material will be described, particularly in Chapter II. The presentation is based on lectures by Milnor at the Institute for Ad vanced Study, and at Haverford College under the Phillips Lecture Pro gram, during the Fall of 1970, as weIl as Iectures at Princeton University il1 1966. We want to thank J. Cunningham, M. Knebusch, M. Kneser, A. Rosenberg, W. Scharlau and J.-P. Serre for helpful suggestions and corrections. Prerequisites. The reader should be familiar with the rudiments of algebra., incJuding for example the concept of tensor product for mo dules over a commutative ring. A few individual sections will require quite a bit more. The logical relationship between the various chapters can be roughly described by the diagram below. There are also five appendices, largely self-contained, which treat special topics. I. Arbitrary commutative rings I H. The ring of V. Miscellaneous IIl. Fields integers examples IV. Dedekind domains Contents Chapter r. Basie Coneepts .. Front Matter....Pages I-VIII Basic Concepts....Pages 1-14 Symmetric Inner Product Spaces over Z....Pages 15-55 Inner Product Spaces over a Field....Pages 56-83 Discrete Valuations and Dedekind Domains....Pages 84-99 Some Examples....Pages 100-109 Back Matter....Pages 110-150