Why did Gauss think the reciprocity law so important in number theory?
Gauss's Disquitiones Arithmeticae centers around the quadratic reciprocity
law. It seems that he developed the genus theory of integral binary
quadratic forms to find a natural proof of the quadratic reciprocity law.
He later wrote 5 papers on number theory. All of them are about the
quadratic and biquadratic reciprocity laws. Why did Gauss think the
reciprocity law so important in number theory?
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