Intuition
Given a polynomial equation with rational coefficients, if it has rational solution, then this also yields a real solution and a p-adic solution, as the rationals embed in the reals and p-adics: a global solution yields local solutions at each prime. The Hasse principle asks when the reverse can be done, or rather, asks what the obstruction is: when can you patch together solutions over the reals and p-adics to yield a solution over the rationals: when can local solutions be joined to form a global solution?
One can ask this for other rings or fields: integers, for instance, or number fields. For number fields, rather than reals and p-adics, one uses complex embeddings and -adics, for prime ideals .
Read more about this topic: Hasse Principle
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“All appeared new, and strange at first, inexpressibly rare and delightful and beautiful. I was a little stranger, which at my entrance into the world was saluted and surrounded with innumerable joys. My knowledge was divine. I knew by intuition those things which since my Apostasy, I collected again by the highest reason.”
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