Abstract
D.K. Harrison [5] has shown that if R and S are fields of characteristic different from 2, then two Witt rings W(R) and W(S) are isomorphic if and only if W(R)/I(R)$^{3}$ and W(S)/I(S)$^{3}$ are isomorphic where I(R) and I(S) denote the fundamental ideals of W(R) and W(S) respectively. In [1], J.K. Arason and A. Pfister proved a corresponding result when the characteristics of R and S are 2, and, in [9], K.I. Mandelberg proved the result when R and S are commutative semi-local rings having 2 a unit. In this paper, we prove the result when R and S are 2-fold full rings. Throughout this paper, unless otherwise specified, we assume that R is a commutative ring having 2 a unit. A quadratic space (V, B, .phi.) over R is a finitely generated projective R-module V with a symmetric bilinear mapping B: V*V.rarw.R which is nondegenerate (i.e., the natural mapping V.rarw.Ho $m_{R}$ (V, R) induced by B is an isomorphism), and with a quadratic mapping .phi.:V.rarw.R such that B(x,y)=(.phi.(x+y)-.phi.(x)-.phi.(y))/2 and .phi.(rx)= $r^{2}$.phi.(x) for all x, y in V and r in R. We denote the group of multiplicative units of R by U(R). If (V, B, .phi.) is a free rank n quadratic space over R with an orthogonal basis { $x_{1}$, .., $x_{n}$}, we will write < $a_{1}$,.., $a_{n}$> for (V, B, .phi.) where the $a_{i}$=.phi.( $x_{i}$) are in U(R), and denote the space by the table [ $a_{ij}$ ] where $a_{ij}$ =B( $x_{i}$, $x_{j}$). In the case n=2 and B( $x_{1}$, $x_{2}$)=1/2, we reserve the notation [ $a_{11}$, $a_{22}$] for the space.the space.e.e.e.