A Comprehensive Course in Number Theory - Baker, Alan

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Résumé :
The author's classic concise introduction now fully updated and developed to suit courses extending from primers to introductions to research.

Biographie:
Alan K. Baker was born in Birmingham, UK in 1964. After graduating from the University of Reading in 1991, he endured a series of increasingly unpleasant jobs, culminating in a nine-month stint as a meat-packer in a Sheffield sausage factory, which served to increase his fascination with the macabre and outlandish. Since 1997, he has published a number of books on the paranormal and popular history, which have been translated into seven languages.

Sommaire:
Developed from the author's popular text, A Concise Introduction to the Theory of Numbers, this book provides a comprehensive initiation to all the major branches of number theory. Beginning with the rudiments of the subject, the author proceeds to more advanced topics, including elements of cryptography and primality testing, an account of number fields in the classical vein including properties of their units, ideals and ideal classes, aspects of analytic number theory including studies of the Riemann zeta-function, the prime-number theorem and primes in arithmetical progressions, a description of the Hardy-Littlewood and sieve methods from respectively additive and multiplicative number theory and an exposition of the arithmetic of elliptic curves. The book includes many worked examples, exercises and further reading. Its wider coverage and versatility make this book suitable for courses extending from the elementary to beginning graduate studies....

'[Baker] ... possesses ... powerful gifts for precision and concision ... [the book] never seems rushed or artificially compressed. Highly recommended.' D. V. Feldman, Choice