The first mathematician who studied quaternion extensions (H8-extensions for short) was Dedekind [6]; he gave Q( √ (2 + √ 2)(3 + √ 6) ) as an example. The question whether given quadratic or biquadratic number fields can be embedded in a quaternion extension was extensively studied by Rosenblüth [32], Reichardt [31], Witt [36], and Damey and Martinet [5]; see Ledet [19] and the surveys [15] and...

where 7 is a given integer of a quadratic field F, and integral solutions £, 77 are sought in F. It has been shown that equation (1) has an infinite number of solutions if and only if 7 is not totally negative when F is a real field, and 7 is not the square of an integer of F when F is imaginary. We now obtain the following result : Let 7 be such that equation (1) has an infinite number of solu...

We provide a number of results that can be used to derive approximations for the Euler product representation of the zeta function of an arbitrary algebraic function field. Three such approximations are given here. Our results have two main applications. They lead to a computationally suitable algorithm for computing the class number of an arbitrary function field. The ideas underlying the clas...

In this thesis, we consider semi-algebraic sets over a real closed field $R$ defined by quadratic polynomials. Semi-algebraic sets of $R^k$ are defined as the smallest family of sets in $R^k$ that contains the algebraic sets as well as the sets defined by polynomial inequalities, and which is also closed under the boolean operations (complementation, finite unions and finite intersections). We ...

In the literature there has been considerable attention given to the exploration of relationships between certain diophantine equations and class numbers of quadratic fields. In this paper we provide criteria for the insolvability of certain diophantine equations. This result is then used to determine when related real quadratic fields have class number bigger than 1. Moreover, based on criteri...