Product Description

The paperback of the critically-acclaimed popular science book by a writer who is fast becoming a celebrity mathematician. Prime numbers are the very atoms of arithmetic. They also embody one of the most tantalising enigmas in the pursuit of human knowledge. How can one predict when the next prime number will occur? Is there a formula which could generate primes? These apparently simple questions have confounded mathematicians ever since the Ancient Greeks. In 1859, the brilliant German mathematician Bernard Riemann put forward an idea which finally seemed to reveal a magical harmony at work in the numerical landscape. The promise that these eternal, unchanging numbers would finally reveal their secret thrilled mathematicians around the world. Yet Riemann, a hypochondriac and a troubled perfectionist, never publicly provided a proof for his hypothesis and his housekeeper burnt all his personal papers on his death. Whoever cracks Riemann's hypothesis will go down in history, for it has implications far beyond mathematics. In business, it is the lynchpin for security and e-commerce. In science, it has critical ramifications in Quantum Mechanics, Chaos Theory, and the future of computing. Pioneers in each of these fields are racing to crack the code and a prize of $1 million has been offered to the winner. As yet, it remains unsolved. In this breathtaking book, mathematician Marcus du Sautoy tells the story of the eccentric and brilliant men who have struggled to solve one of the biggest mysteries in science. It is a story of strange journeys, last-minute escapes from death and the unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Above all, it is a moving and awe-inspiring evocation of the mathematician's world and the beauties and mysteries it contains.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2669 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

Review
'Du Sautoy is a contagious enthusiast, a populist with a staunch faith in the public's intelligence!he has uncovered a wealth of intriguing anecdotes that he has woven into a compelling narrative.' Observer 'He laces the ideas with history, anecdote and personalia -- an entertaining mix that renders an austere subject palatable!valiant and ingenious!Even those with a mathematical allergy can enjoy du Sautoy's depictions of his cast of characters' The Times 'He brings hugely enjoyable writing, full of zest and passion, to the most fundamental questions in the pursuit of true knowledge.' Sunday Times 'A mesmerising journey into the world of mathematics and its mysteries.' Daily Mail 'A brilliant storyteller.' Independent

Telegraph
'A wonderful portrait gallery of the obsessional, colourful eccentrics who, from Pythagoras onwards, have collectively extended the boundaries of numbers.'

The Financial Times
'... the exhilaration of the chase comes over even when you don't know exactly what you're looking for.'

Customer Reviews

A fantastic, beautiful book
It was Singh's "Fermat's Last Theorem" that led me to look for another book on Number Theory, and I'm very pleased I stumbled upon "The Music of the Primes". I've read a lot of popular science books, but this is definitely my favourite.

It is incredibly easy to read, and the author gets the balance perfectly right between historical information, description of individuals and circumstances, and the maths itself. I'm pleased the maths isn't covered too thoroughly - I suspect it would have left me upset that I couldn't follow it, and negatively affected the overall story. If you do feel the need, it's simple to get any information you like on the maths involved from the web - I have a print out of a very good explanation of the zeta function now tucked in the back of the book.

The subject matter is mind-blowing, and I'm appalled that I hadn't heard about it properly before. I would love to have found out about this at a younger age, and will force my own children to read it as soon as possible!!

Fascinating and infuriating
This is a book I found fascinating and infuriating in turns. It is an excellent layman's history of number theory with particular reference to prime numbers and the Riemann zeta function. As such it is well worth the reading.
However I found that there are certain elements, more of style than anything else, that annoyed me. Most of the results are handed to us without any proof whatsoever. All right, some of these proofs would be obviously well beyond the layman, but one is described as being understandable by the ancient Greeks (who started the whole thing) so why not include it as a footnote or appendix?
Having established fairly early on that the points where a mathematical function "reaches sea level" are known as zeros, why keep reverting to the sea level analogy?
And although the underlying theme throughout the book is the apparent inextricable link between the zeta function's zeros and counting primes, the Riemann hypothesis, I could find no clear, concise statement of exactly what Riemann said.
Spanning over 2000 years, from the ancient Greeks to the 21st century, this is a book I would thoroughly recommend.

Very good, but could have been better...
I really wanted this book to be as good as Simon Singh's 'Fermat's Last Theorem', and while it shares many of the same characteristics as Singh's excellent debut, for me it didn't quite match up.

Of course, there my be a couple of simple reasons why this may have been so. Firstly, the Riemann Hypothesis is a rather more conceptually difficult mathematical problem to grasp than Pierre de Fermat's simple but elusive conjecture. Du Sautoy tries to deal with this by using analogies to landscapes and music, but due to the gaps between my reading sessions, I sometimes forgot the origin of the analogical thread, which meant I had to search back through the text to 'catch up'.

The other main reason why this book was less satisfying is because nobody has yet proven Riemann's Hypthesis to be true, whereas Fermat's Last Theorem was finally proven by Andrew Wiles in the 1990's.

Lastly, the book could have benefited from a series of notes or appendices linked to the text, through which the keen reader could gain a mathematical explanation of what was being described in the text. Again, Singh's book is a beautiful example of how this should be done.

Overall though, a very good book, which I am sure I will read again.