Specialization of Quadratic and Symmetric Bilinear Forms

A Mathematician Said Who Can Quote Me a Theorem that’s True? For the ones that I Know Are Simply not So, When the Characteristic is Two! This pretty limerick ?rst came to my ears in May 1998 during a talk by T.Y. Lam 1 on ?eld invariants from the theory of quadratic forms. It is—poetic exaggeration allowed—a suitable motto for this monograph. What is it about? At the beginning of the seventies I drew up a specialization theoryofquadraticandsymmetricbilinear formsover ?elds[32].Let? : K? L?? be a