Citation: Scharlau, Winfried. "On the history of the algebraic theory of quadratic forms." Contemporary Mathematics 272 (2000): 229-260.
Web: https://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/~v1ranick/books/dublin.pdf
Tags: Mathematical, Pedagogical, Expository
This paper gives a lovely look into the history of quadratic forms. It is well written, and so this serves as a nice place to learn what the theory of quadratic forms is all about.
Another relevant paper about quadratic forms to keep in mind is
> Miranda, Rick. "Nondegenerate symmetric bilinear forms on finite abelian 2-groups." Transactions of the American Mathematical Society 284.2 (1984): 535-542.