Prime Numbers: The Most Mysterious Figures in Math | 
 enlarge | Author: David Wells
Publisher: Wiley
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $9.30
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Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 236884
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 0471462349
Dewey Decimal Number: 512.723
EAN: 9780471462347
Publication Date: May 18, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
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
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 Prime time August 17, 2005
Daniel Buck
10 out of 12 found this review helpful
As ever David Wells has written a most fascinating and highly enjoyable book. Anyone au fait with any of Mr Wells other works will know them to be of the "pop" maths book style, Mr Wells being one of the great expositors of this gendre, bringing deep concepts and a full knowledge of his topic to a wide audience, always with a great sense of humour and fun. Here David Wells has written a fascinating and intellectual book on primes; primes are the key to the number system and are as mysterious and fascinating as the cover suggests. In Wells inimitable style, always delighting us with the history of his subject and treating us to some new tricks up his sleeve, we are whizzed through a dictionary of prime facts and conclusions and non-conclusions (it's a book about primes), the subject is vast, and Wells flys through the matters of the primes in number theory in a readable and thorough listing of those facts he illustrates. Buy Primes, I know you'll love it as much as I did.
Mathematics for senior citizaens October 22, 2006
K. Long (Boerne, TX USA)
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
I do not have much of a mathematical background and I am 75. I was able to work my way straight through this book. I don't pretend to have understood some parts of it but the many parts I did understand were enthralling. I was able to read it straight through, albeit it slowly, and my interest never flagged. Thanks.
A Mathematical Comedy August 20, 2005
John Matlock (Winnemucca, NV)
10 out of 13 found this review helpful
This book is a mathematical comedy. For most of us prime numbers have no value beyond a bit of curiosity -- if you're into cryptology of course then you're looking at a horse of an entirely different color.
Prime numbers have been thought about, played with, studied, been the subject of prizes. The Clay prizes were offered on May 24, 2000. They offer a million dollars (yes, $1,000,000) for the solution to each of seven problems. Of course the first problem is the Riemann hypothesis, which people have been trying to solve for about a hundred and fifty years.
This book is light and entertaining. As I said, almost a comedy. For instance Cicadas of the genus Magicidada (an insect) appear once every 7, 13, or 17 years -- all prime numbers -- why?
An entertaining book for the mathematician.
Math Book "Prime Numbers" January 20, 2008
Guru Guru (Texas)
Very good book. I'm not a math pro, but I found
it very interesting.
Reviewing the numbers! February 25, 2006
J. Young (Upland, CA USA)
1 out of 9 found this review helpful
Haven't read through the entire book yet but so far there are a lot of theorem equations I've never heard before that are very interesting to consider. I've been trying to find my own way to find any possible prime number and this book is very helpful in showing you whats already been done and could influence you to maybe think of an equation or method yourself (for finding prime numbers that is). Other than that. I don't have too much detailed information on this book yet.
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