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Mahler's Theorem

Number Theory

Mahler's theorem, introduced by Kurt Mahler in 1958, is the p-adic counterpart to the Stone-Weierstrass theorem. It states that a function from the p-adic integers to the p-adic rationals is continuous if and only if it can be written as a convergent infinite series of binomial-coefficient polynomials built from the forward difference operator, its Newton series. The theorem needs only the weak hypothesis of continuity to guarantee this convergence in the p-adic setting, a striking contrast with the real or complex case, where a comparable result requires the much stronger hypotheses of Carlson's theorem. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Facts
Statement
A function from the p-adic integers to the p-adic rationals is continuous if and only if its Newton series converges everywhere to it. 1
Proof Year
1958 1
Classification
Statement Form
Characterization Theorem 1
Connections

Has Statement Form

Entity-backed identity for the statement-form enum value this theorem already carries, resolved to a mathematics concept by an explicit value-to-entity map (phase 3 bucket conversion, docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md). The statement-form fact itself stays on the theorem unchanged.

Proved By

Source Mahler's theorem (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. Mahler's theorem (Wikipedia)
  • Statement
    is continuous if and only if its Newton series converges everywhere to
  • Introduction, first sentence
    introduced by Kurt Mahler (1958)
  • Proved By: Kurt Mahler, Lead paragraph
    In mathematics, Mahler's theorem, introduced by Kurt Mahler (1958), expresses any continuous p-adic function as an infinite series of certain special
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