Introduction to Number Theory with Computing

by R.B.J.T. Allenby

This introduction to number theory has been written specifically for mathematics and computing undergraduates. Computer programs in BASIC are accompanied by basic text which explains the subject and demonstrates how computers have opened up new horizons for number theorists.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0713136618
• ISBN13: 9780713136616
• Release Date: January 1989
• Publisher: Edward Arnold
• Length: 309 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A feast for the maths amateur who likes to experiment with a computer

This is an excellent book for the interested amateur mathematician who likes experimenting with numbers using a computer, as well as a useful extra book for the maths student. Everyone reading it can join in the fun of numbers straight away without much maths background. It is readable, fun, gives lots of BASIC programs which are easily translated into your favourite programming language too, has many exercises which - and this is rare in maths books in my experience - are fun too! It takes things at a nice pace, never going too fast but giving lots of examples and applications and notes. There are many extra sections with details of the lives of the famous mathematicians whose results are presented. The 'starter' in this feast is divisibility and the main course is the the primes, looking at decimal numbers and repeating fractions along the way. There are side-orders of Pythagoras's theorem and finding right-angled triangles with integer sides, writing a number as a sum of two square numbers, quadratic reciprocity, complex (Gaussian) numbers; the continued fractions section is especially interesting and accessible and ends with a little cryptography (codes). An appendix gives programs for adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing numbers which can be as large as you like (multiprecision arithmetic). Altogether a wonderful well-written book to both dip in to as well as to study from cover to cover. The authors have been (UK) university maths lecturers for many years and their experience shows. Although it was written in 1989, the maths is classic and timeless and the programs still work!