Prime Numbers
The Most Mysterious Figures in Math
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- US$15.99
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A fascinating journey into the mind-bending world of prime numbers
Cicadas of the genus Magicicada appear once every 7, 13, or 17 years. Is it just a coincidence that these are all prime numbers? How do twin primes differ from cousin primes, and what on earth (or in the mind of a mathematician) could be sexy about prime numbers? What did Albert Wilansky find so fascinating about his brother-in-law's phone number?
Mathematicians have been asking questions about prime numbers for more than twenty-five centuries, and every answer seems to generate a new rash of questions. In Prime Numbers: The Most Mysterious Figures in Math, you'll meet the world's most gifted mathematicians, from Pythagoras and Euclid to Fermat, Gauss, and Erd?o?s, and you'll discover a host of unique insights and inventive conjectures that have both enlarged our understanding and deepened the mystique of prime numbers. This comprehensive, A-to-Z guide covers everything you ever wanted to know--and much more that you never suspected--about prime numbers, including:
* The unproven Riemann hypothesis and the power of the zeta function
* The "Primes is in P" algorithm
* The sieve of Eratosthenes of Cyrene
* Fermat and Fibonacci numbers
* The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search
* And much, much more
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The recent spate of popular books on the Riemann hypothesis, which concerns the distribution of prime numbers and is the greatest unsolved math problem since Andrew Wiles solved Fermat's famous last theorem 10 years ago, augurs well for this directory from British author Wells (The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers). Arranged alphabetically, the text covers such topics as gaps between primes, Mersenne primes (primes of the form 2 to the nth power minus 1), palindromic primes, record primes (the largest "not of a special and easily tested form" as of 2003 has 10,000 digits), repunits (primes that consist exclusively of the digit 1), "sexy" primes (primes that differ by six) and twin primes. For James Bond fans, there's even mention of "007" primes. Mathematicians who contributed to prime number theory, including Leonhard Euler, G.H. Hardy and A.M. Legendre, receive separate entries. While some of the math is fairly sophisticated, lay readers will find plenty that's readily comprehensible. A bibliography and list of Web sites point the way for those wishing to explore primes in greater depth.
