"A very stimulating book ... in a class by itself." — American MathematicalMonthly
Advanced students, mathematicians and number theorists will welcome this stimulating treatment of advanced number theory, which approaches the complex topic of algebraic number theory from a historical standpoint, taking pains to show the reader how concepts, definitions and theories have evolved during the last two centuries. Moreover, the book abounds with numerical examples and more concrete, specific theorems than are found in most contemporary treatments of the subject.

The book is divided into three parts. Part I is concerned with background material — a synopsis of elementary number theory (including quadratic congruences and the Jacobi symbol), characters of residue class groups via the structure theorem for finite abelian groups, first notions of integral domains, modules and lattices, and such basis theorems as Kronecker's Basis Theorem for Abelian Groups.

Part II discusses ideal theory in quadratic fields, with chapters on unique factorization and units, unique factorization into ideals, norms and ideal classes (in particular, Minkowski's theorem), and class structure in quadratic fields. Applications of this material are made in Part III to class number formulas and primes in arithmetic progression, quadratic reciprocity in the rational domain and the relationship between quadratic forms and ideals, including the theory of composition, orders and genera. In a final concluding survey of more recent developments, Dr. Cohn takes up Cyclotomic Fields and Gaussian Sums, Class Fields and Global and Local Viewpoints.

In addition to numerous helpful diagrams and tables throughout the text, appendices, and an annotated bibliography, Advanced Number Theory also includes over 200 problems specially designed to stimulate the spirit of experimentation which has traditionally ruled number theory.

Why seemingly unrelated mathematical truths are connected in simple and beautiful equations continues to stump even mathematicians. This recreational math book takes the reader on a fantastic voyage into the world of natural numbers. From the earliest discoveries of the ancient Greeks to various fundamental characteristics of the natural number sequence, Clawson explains fascinating mathematical mysteries in clear and easy prose. He delves into the heart of number theory to see and understand the exquisite relationships among natural numbers, and ends by exploring the ultimate mystery of mathematics: the Riemann hypothesis, which says that through a point in a plane, no line can be drawn parallel to a given line.While a professional mathematician's treatment of number theory involves the most sophisticated analytical tools, its basic ideas are surprisingly easy to comprehend. By concentrating on the meaning behind various equations and proofs and avoiding technical refinements, Mathematical Mysteries lets the common reader catch a glimpse of this wonderful and exotic world.

Although mathematics majors are usually conversant with number theory by the time they have completed a course in abstract algebra, other undergraduates, especially those in education and the liberal arts, often need a more basic introduction to the topic.

In this book the author solves the problem of maintaining the interest of students at both levels by offering a combinatorial approach to elementary number theory. In studying number theory from such a perspective, mathematics majors are spared repetition and provided with new insights, while other students benefit from the consequent simplicity of the proofs for many theorems.

Among the topics covered in this accessible, carefully designed introduction are multiplicativity-divisibility, including the fundamental theorem of arithmetic, combinatorial and computational number theory, congruences, arithmetic functions, primitive roots and prime numbers. Later chapters offer lucid treatments of quadratic congruences, additivity (including partition theory) and geometric number theory.

Of particular importance in this text is the author's emphasis on the value of numerical examples in number theory and the role of computers in obtaining such examples. Exercises provide opportunities for constructing numerical tables with or without a computer. Students can then derive conjectures from such numerical tables, after which relevant theorems will seem natural and well-motivated.

George E. Andrews, Evan Pugh Professor of Mathematics at Pennsylvania State University, author of the well-established text Number Theory (first published by Saunders in 1971 and reprinted by Dover in 1994), has led an active career discovering fascinating phenomena in his chosen field — number theory. Perhaps his greatest discovery, however, was not solely one in the intellectual realm but in the physical world as well.

In 1975, on a visit to Trinity College in Cambridge to study the papers of the late mathematician George N. Watson, Andrews found what turned out to be one of the actual Holy Grails of number theory, the document that became known as the "Lost Notebook" of the great Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. It happened that the previously unknown notebook thus discovered included an immense amount of Ramanujan's original work bearing on one of Andrews' main mathematical preoccupations — mock theta functions. Collaborating with colleague Bruce C. Berndt of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Andrews has since published the first two of a planned three-volume sequence based on Ramanujan's Lost Notebook, and will see the project completed with the appearance of the third volume in the next few years.

In the Author's Own Words:
"It seems to me that there's this grand mathematical world out there, and I am wandering through it and discovering fascinating phenomena that often totally surprise me. I do not think of mathematics as invented but rather discovered." — George E. Andrews