History
The definition of the discriminant of a general algebraic number field, K, was given by Dedekind in 1871. At this point, he already knew the relationship between the discriminant and ramification.
Hermite's theorem predates the general definition of the discriminant with Charles Hermite publishing a proof of it in 1857. In 1877, Alexander von Brill determined the sign of the discriminant. Leopold Kronecker first stated Minkowski's theorem in 1882, though the first proof was given by Hermann Minkowski in 1891. In the same year, Minkowski published his bound on the discriminant. Near the end of the nineteenth century, Ludwig Stickelberger obtained his theorem on the residue of the discriminant modulo four.
Read more about this topic: Discriminant Of An Algebraic Number Field
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