Classification of the positive integers not being the sum of four non-zero squares

Question

It is well known that every positive integer is the sum of at most four perfect squares (including $1$).

But which positive integers are not the sum of four non-zero perfect squares ($1$ is still allowed as a perfect square) ?

I showed that the numbers $2^k$ , $2^k\cdot 3$ and $2^k\cdot 7$ with odd positive integer $k$ have this property. I checked the numbers upto $10^4$ and above $41$, no examples , other than those of the mentioned forms , occured. So my question is whether additional positive integers with the desired property exist.

Answer 1

page 140 in Conway's little book, $$ 1,3,5,9,11,17,29,41, \; 2 \cdot 4^m \; , \; 6 \cdot 4^m \; , \; 14 \cdot 4^m \; . $$ The proof is on the same page, with preparatory material in the previous few pages.

The first detail: any number $3 \pmod 8$ is the sum of three squares, meanwhile they must be odd squares, therefore nonzero. The square of any number that is divisible by $4$ becomes $0 \pmod 8.$ As a result, any number $6 \pmod 8$ is the sum of three squares, as $ (2A)^2 + B^2 + C^2,$ where $A,B,C$ must be odd squares, therefore nonzero.

10 June: Second detail: if $x^2 + y^2 + z^2 \equiv 0 \pmod 4,$ then $x,y,z$ are all even. This means that $12 \pmod{32}$ is the sum of three nonzero squares. Same for $24 \pmod{32}$

Answer 2

Some of my topograph answers, in order by question number. I got better with the diagrams as time went by. If you just look at these, not much will happen. If you draw some of your own examples, you will begin to understand.

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BOOKS:

http://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/~aar/papers/conwaysens.pdf (Conway)

http://www.springer.com/us/book/9780387955872 (Stillwell)

https://www.math.cornell.edu/~hatcher/TN/TNbook.pdf (Hatcher)

http://bookstore.ams.org/mbk-105/ (Weissman)

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