In 1859 Bernhard Riemann, a shy German mathematician, wrote an eight-page article, suggesting an answer to a problem that had long puzzled mathematicians. For the next 150 years, the world's mathematicians have longed to confirm the Riemann hypothesis. So great is the interest in its solution that in 2001, an American foundation offered a million-dollar prize to the first person to demonstrate that the hypothesis is correct. Karl Sabbagh's book paints vivid portraits of the mathematicians who spend their days and nights on the race to solve the problem.
Author(s): Karl Sabbagh
Publisher: Atlantic Books
Year: 2003
Language: English
Pages: C, xii, 289
Tags: Математика;Популярная математика;
Cover
About the Book and the Author
Collected Photos
Dr Riemann's Zeros
Copyright
© Karl Sabbagh 2002
ISBN 184354 101 7
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
THE MATHEMATICIANS
A NOTE ABOUT THE TOOLKITS
PROLOGUE
1 Prime time
2 'Gorgeous stuff´
3 New numbers for old
4 Indian summer
5 'Very probably'
6 Proofs and refutations
7 The Bieberbach Conjecture
8 In search of zeros
9 The Princeton tea party
10 A driven man
11 The physics of mathematics
12 A laudable aim
13 'No simple matter'I
14 Taking a critical lineIt
15 Abstract delights
16 Discovered or invented?
17 'What's it all about?'It
TOOLKITS
TOOlKIT 1: logarithms and exponents
TOOlKIT 2; Equations
TOOLKIT 3; Infinite series
TOOlKIT 4; The Euler identity
TOOLKIT 5; Graphs in maths
TOOLKIT 6; Matrices and eigenvalues
NOTES
APPENDIX: De Branges's proof
The Riemann Hypothesis for Dirichlet Zeta functions
FURTHER READING
INDEX
