Review of
The
Riemann Hypothesis, by Roland van der Veen and Jan van de
Craats, Mathematical Association of America, Washington, D. C., 2015. 144 pp.,
$45.00 (paper). ISBN 9780883856505.
Five out of five stars
For approximately
a century, the Riemann hypothesis has been the single, most significant
unsolved problem in mathematics. Since it was first mentioned by Bernard
Riemann in 1859, largely as an afterthought, the problem is one whose solution
has remained elusive. It was the eighth problem in the famous list of 23 major
problems to solve in the twentieth century that was put forward by David
Hilbert in 1900. It is also one of the problems where the Clay Mathematical
Institute offers one million dollars for a solution.
This book is a
collection of material that was the text for a four week long web class on the
Riemann hypothesis that was aimed at mathematically bright secondary students.
It contains a large number of challenging exercises that the students were to
work on, partial solutions are included. The students received the material,
worked on the problems and communicated with each other and the teachers over
the internet.
Instructors of
special topics math classes will be able to use this book for a section on
specialized number theory, with an emphasis on the zeta function. It is a
self-contained short course in the topic. Mathematicians that are just
interested in learning more about the Riemann hypothesis can also use it as a
self-study tutorial. This book begins with the basics of the prime numbers and goes
step-by-step through the background material until the zeta function and the
Riemann hypothesis are explained.
A web site
where the reader can access a Mathematica-like computation engine for number
theory computations is also given. Snippets of computer code that will perform
specific number theory computations are also given. I tested the website out
and it is extremely easy to use.
This book was made available for free for review
purposes
Computation engine link
No comments:
Post a Comment