Mahler measure
Measure of polynomial height / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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In mathematics, the Mahler measure of a polynomial with complex coefficients is defined as
where factorizes over the complex numbers as
The Mahler measure can be viewed as a kind of height function. Using Jensen's formula, it can be proved that this measure is also equal to the geometric mean of for on the unit circle (i.e., ):
By extension, the Mahler measure of an algebraic number is defined as the Mahler measure of the minimal polynomial of over . In particular, if is a Pisot number or a Salem number, then its Mahler measure is simply .
The Mahler measure is named after the German-born Australian mathematician Kurt Mahler.