Hilbert's seventeenth problem

Hilbert's seventeenth problem is one of the 23 Hilbert problems set out in a celebrated list compiled in 1900 by David Hilbert. It concerns the expression of positive definite rational functions as sums of quotients of squares. The original question may be reformulated as:

• Given a multivariate polynomial that takes only non-negative values over the reals, can it be represented as a sum of squares of rational functions?

Hilbert's question can be restricted to homogeneous polynomials of even degree, since a polynomial of odd degree changes sign, and the homogenization of a polynomial takes only nonnegative values if and only if the same is true for the polynomial.