Algebraic number theory is a major branch of number theory which studies algebraic structures related to algebraic integers. This is generally accomplished by considering a ring of algebraic integers O in an algebraic number field K/Q, and studying their algebraic properties such as factorization, the behaviour of ideals, and field extensions. In this setting, the familiar features of the integers—such as unique factorization—need not hold. The virtue of the primary machinery employed—Galois theory, group cohomology, group representations, and L-functions—is that it allows one to deal with new phenomena and yet partially recover the behaviour of the usual integers.
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“I have no scheme about it,—no designs on men at all; and, if I had, my mode would be to tempt them with the fruit, and not with the manure. To what end do I lead a simple life at all, pray? That I may teach others to simplify their lives?—and so all our lives be simplified merely, like an algebraic formula? Or not, rather, that I may make use of the ground I have cleared, to live more worthily and profitably?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—William James (1842–1910)
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—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)