Congruent numbers

Abstract

Number theory is the part of mathematics concerned with the mysterious and hidden properties of the integers and rational numbers (by a rational number, we mean the ratio of two integers). The congruent number problem, the written history of which can be traced back at least a millennium, is the oldest unsolved major problem in number theory, and perhaps in the whole of mathematics. We say that a right-angled triangle is “rational” if all its sides have rational length. A positive integer N is said to be “congruent” if it is the area of a rational right-angled triangle. If we multiply any congruent number N by the square of an integer, we again get a congruent number, and so it suffices to consider only those integers N that are square-free (meaning not divisible by the square of an integer >1). The congruent number problem is simply the question of deciding which square-free positive integers are, or are not, congruent numbers. Long ago, it was realized that an integer N ≥ 1 is congruent if and only if there exists a point (x, y) on the elliptic curve y2 = x3 − N2x, with rational coordinates x, y and with y ≠ 0. Until the 17th century, mathematicians made numerical tables of congruent numbers by using ingenuity to write down the corresponding rational right-angled triangles. For example, the integers 5, 6, and 7 were all known to be congruent, as they are the areas of the right-angled triangles, whose sides lengths are given respectively by [40/6, 9/6, 41/6], [3, 4, 5], and [288/60, 175/60, 337/60]. The first important theoretical result about congruent numbers was established by Fermat, who proved in the 17th century that 1 is not a congruent number. As explained in more …