Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2001 ib Paper 1 8B Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
The discriminant of a binary quadratic form is . If the form is positive-definite, evaluating it at gives . For , completing the square givesEvaluating along shows that positivity also requires . Conversely these two inequalities make both displayed coefficients positive, provingA reduced positive definite binary quadratic form satisfies , with if or . The last convention avoids counting both boundary representatives. For fixed negative discriminant, these inequalities implyThere are finitely many such integers , finitely many integers with , and then is determined. Hence the number of reduced forms is finite. If no admissible integer coefficients have the given discriminant, this number is zero.
For , the bound gives . The integrality of and the boundary sign convention give respectivelyThese are all the reduced positive definite binary quadratic forms of discriminant minus thirty-nine. Thusrepresented by , , , and .