Class Number Problem
In mathematics, the Gauss class number problem (for imaginary quadratic fields), as usually understood, is to provide for each n ≥ 1 a complete list of imaginary quadratic fields with class number n. It is named after the great mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss. It can also be stated in terms of discriminants. There are related questions for real quadratic fields and the behavior as
- .
The difficulty is in effective computation of bounds: for a given discriminant, it is easy to compute the class number, and there are several ineffective lower bounds on class number (meaning that they involve a constant that is not computed), but effective bounds (and explicit proofs of completeness of lists) are harder.
Read more about Class Number Problem: Gauss's Original Conjectures, Status, Lists of Discriminants of Class Number 1, Modern Developments, Real Quadratic Fields
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