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Unusually clear, accessible introduction covers counting, properties of numbers, prime numbers, Aliquot parts, Diophantine problems, congruences, much more. Bibliography.
Unusually clear, accessible introduction covers counting, properties of numbers, prime numbers, Aliquot parts, Diophantine problems, congruences, much more. Bibliography.
This book presents a historical overview of number theory. It examines texts that span some thirty-six centuries of arithmetical work, from an Old Babylonian tablet to Legendre’s Essai sur la Théorie des Nombres, written in 1798. Coverage employs a historical approach in the analysis of problems and evolving methods of number theory and their significance within mathematics. The book also takes the reader into the workshops of four major authors of modern number theory: Fermat, Euler, Lagrange and Legendre and presents a detailed and critical examination of their work.
This book presents a historical overview of number theory. It examines texts that span some thirty-six centuries of arithmetical work, from an Old Babylonian tablet to Legendre’s Essai sur la Théorie des Nombres, written in 1798. Coverage employs a historical approach in the analysis of problems and evolving methods of number theory and their significance within mathematics. The book also takes the reader into the workshops of four major authors of modern number theory: Fermat, Euler, Lagrange and Legendre and presents a detailed and critical examination of their work.
Solutions of equations in integers is the central problem of number theory and is the focus of this book. The amount of material is suitable for a one-semester course. The author has tried to avoid the ad hoc proofs in favor of unifying ideas that work in many situations. There are exercises at the end of almost every section, so that each new idea or proof receives immediate reinforcement.
This book is written for the student in mathematics. Its goal is to give a view of the theory of numbers, of the problems with which this theory deals, and of the methods that are used. We have avoided that style which gives a systematic development of the apparatus and have used instead a freer style, in which the problems and the methods of solution are closely interwoven. We start from concrete problems in number theory. General theories arise as tools for solving these problems. As a rule, these theories are developed sufficiently far so that the reader can see for himself their strength and beauty, and so that he learns to apply them. Most of the questions that are examined in this book are connected with the theory of diophantine equations - that is, with the theory of the solutions in integers of equations in several variables. However, we also consider questions of other types; for example, we derive the theorem of Dirichlet on prime numbers in arithmetic progressions and investigate the growth of the number of solutions of congruences.
This textbook covers the main topics in number theory as taught in universities throughout the world. Number theory deals mainly with properties of integers and rational numbers; it is not an organized theory in the usual sense but a vast collection of individual topics and results, with some coherent sub-theories and a long list of unsolved problems. This book excludes topics relying heavily on complex analysis and advanced algebraic number theory. The increased use of computers in number theory is reflected in many sections (with much greater emphasis in this edition). Some results of a more advanced nature are also given, including the Gelfond-Schneider theorem, the prime number theorem, and the Mordell-Weil theorem. The latest work on Fermat's last theorem is also briefly discussed. Each chapter ends with a collection of problems; hints or sketch solutions are given at the end of the book, together with various useful tables.
"Number theory is one of the oldest and noblest branches of mathematics; indeed, it was already ancient in the time of Euclid...for almost all of its history it has seemed to be among the purest branches of mathematics. It is only within the last few decades that a large number of applications have been encountered, at least by the mathematical community. The applications to cryptology are now famous; but it is not as well known that number theory has found an enormous number and variety of real-world applications in many different fields." - From the Preface This book is based on the AMS Short Course, The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Number Theory, held in Orono, Maine, in August 1991. This Short Course provided some views into the great breadth of application of number theory outside cryptology and highlighted the power and applicability of number-theoretic ideas. Because number theory is one of the most accessible areas of mathematics, this book will appeal to a general mathematical audience as well as to researchers in other areas of science and engineering who wish to learn how number theory is being applied outside of mathematics. All of the chapters are written by leading specialists in number theory and provides excellent introduction to various applications.
This well-developed, accessible text details the historical development of the subject throughout. It also provides wide-ranging coverage of significant results with comparatively elementary proofs, some of them new. This second edition contains two new chapters that provide a complete proof of the Mordel-Weil theorem for elliptic curves over the rational numbers and an overview of recent progress on the arithmetic of elliptic curves.
