Number Theory, Robin Wilson
Number Theory, Robin Wilson
List: $12.99 | Sale: $9.10
Club: $6.49

Number Theory
A Very Short Introduction

Author: Robin Wilson

Narrator: Al Kessel

Unabridged: 7 hr 16 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 07/31/2020

Categories: Nonfiction, Mathematics


Synopsis

Number theory is the branch of mathematics that is primarily concerned with the counting numbers. Of particular importance are the prime numbers, the "building blocks" of our number system. The subject is an old one, dating back over two millennia to the ancient Greeks, and for many years has been studied for its intrinsic beauty and elegance, not least because several of its challenges are so easy to state that everyone can understand them, and yet no one has ever been able to resolve them.

But number theory has also recently become of great practical importance—in the area of cryptography, where the security of your credit card, and indeed of the nation's defense, depends on a result concerning prime numbers that dates back to the eighteenth century. Recent years have witnessed other spectacular developments, such as Andrew Wiles's proof of "Fermat's last theorem" (unproved for over 250 years) and some exciting work on prime numbers. In this Very Short Introduction Robin Wilson introduces the main areas of classical number theory, both ancient and modern. Drawing on the work of many of the greatest mathematicians of the past, such as Euclid, Fermat, Euler, and Gauss, he situates some of the most interesting and creative problems in the area in their historical context.

About Robin Wilson

Robin Wilson received his PhD degree from the University of Pennsylvania for a thesis on number theory. He is an Emeritus Professor of Pure Mathematics at the Open University, Emeritus Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, London, and a former fellow of Keble College, Oxford University. He is also a visiting professor at the London School of Economics. A former president of the British Society for the History of Mathematics, he has written and edited over forty books on the subject, including Lewis Carroll in Numberland, Four Colours Suffice, Combinatorics: A Very Short Introduction, and Euler's Pioneering Equation. He has been awarded the Mathematical Association of America's Lester Ford award and Polya prize for his "outstanding expository writing", and the Stanton Medal for outreach activities in combinatorics by the Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications. He has Erdos Number 1.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Esraa

لعالم الرياضيات الألماني الشهير جاوس مقولة شهيرة: "الرياضيات ملكة العلوم، ونظرية الأعداد ملكة الرياضيات". .نظرية الأعداد مجال مثير للاهتمام وفيه مسائل مفتوحة عديدة للآن، بعضها قد يمنح صاحب حلها مليون دولار(^ن^) الكتاب متنوع وذكر عدة موضوعات مختلفة في نظرية الأعداد منها إنجازات حديثة في المجال. وطريقة......more

Goodreads review by Wing

Modular arithmetic, factorisation, prime numbers, and many more areas are covered. For a lay reader (by trade I am a physician), quite an amount of attention, concentration, and perseverance is needed to comprehend the many captivating results in it. However, equations are not numbered so cross-refe......more

Goodreads review by Yassine

The best number theory intro I have read. I wish it was a little longer. 😁......more

Goodreads review by Kayla

This book is set up PERFECTLY for anybody interested in number theory, and is great for any university maths student that is about to take a number theory module. To start off, Wilson introduced the famous mathematicians that you never stop hearing the names of in the maths world and puts a face to......more

Goodreads review by James

An interesting little introduction to the fundamentals of numbers - actually understood it!......more