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    Number Theory: A Historical Approach
    Number Theory: A Historical Approach
    Number Theory: A Historical Approach
    Ebook485 pages13 hours

    Number Theory: A Historical Approach

    By John J. Watkins

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    About this ebook

    An introductory textbook with a unique historical approach to teaching number theory

    The natural numbers have been studied for thousands of years, yet most undergraduate textbooks present number theory as a long list of theorems with little mention of how these results were discovered or why they are important. This book emphasizes the historical development of number theory, describing methods, theorems, and proofs in the contexts in which they originated, and providing an accessible introduction to one of the most fascinating subjects in mathematics.

    Written in an informal style by an award-winning teacher, Number Theory covers prime numbers, Fibonacci numbers, and a host of other essential topics in number theory, while also telling the stories of the great mathematicians behind these developments, including Euclid, Carl Friedrich Gauss, and Sophie Germain. This one-of-a-kind introductory textbook features an extensive set of problems that enable students to actively reinforce and extend their understanding of the material, as well as fully worked solutions for many of these problems. It also includes helpful hints for when students are unsure of how to get started on a given problem.

    • Uses a unique historical approach to teaching number theory
    • Features numerous problems, helpful hints, and fully worked solutions
    • Discusses fun topics like Pythagorean tuning in music, Sudoku puzzles, and arithmetic progressions of primes
    • Includes an introduction to Sage, an easy-to-learn yet powerful open-source mathematics software package
    • Ideal for undergraduate mathematics majors as well as non-math majors
    • Digital solutions manual (available only to professors)
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPrinceton University Press
    Release dateDec 29, 2013
    ISBN9781400848744
    Number Theory: A Historical Approach
    Author

    John J. Watkins

    John J. Watkins is professor emeritus of mathematics at Colorado College. His books include Across the Board: The Mathematics of Chessboard Problems (Princeton), Topics in Commutative Ring Theory (Princeton), Graphs: An Introductory Approach, and Combinatorics: Ancient and Modern.

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