The Music of the Primes: Why an Unsolved Problem in Mathematics Matters

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Però qui, correttamente, la biografia delle persone è importante ma non travalica mai la discussione del problema matematico, le spiegazioni bilanciano bene precisione e divulgazione (su di un tema difficilissimo) e il vaggio è lungo e dettagliato, senza necessità di creare un intreccio da romanzo nei punti in cui, inevitabilmente, non c'è. There is a good reason for the religious, even spiritual, interpretation of mathematics - particularly number theory, and especially prime numbers. Generations have sat listening to the rhythm of the prime-number drum as it beats out its sequence of numbers: two beats, followed by three beats, five, seven, eleven. In fact I found the most interesting section was the application of prime number mathematics to internet security and cryptography.

The Music of the Primes - KSU

In 1859, the German mathematician Bernhard Riemann presented a paper to the Berlin Academy which would change the history of mathematics. i remember i came across the Riemann Hypothesis before reading this book and i tried to understand it by reading its Wikipedia related articles several times, but without having the slightest of idea about it! His urgent need to explain why his problem (and consequently his book) 'matters' leads him into some surprising claims. I really enjoyed the historical background – which I hadn’t done a lot on in my studies – and the parts about the joy of mathematics (Yes, it really is enjoyable! The one advantage that music has over mathematics is the physical connection that our body has with the sound of a composition.This new edition features updates from the author and a foreword by actor and director, Simon McBurney. Pero el esfuerzo divulgativo es notable y en otros capítulos hay verdadera emoción con la brillantez de algunas mentes.

The music of the primes : Marcus Du Sautoy : Free Download The music of the primes : Marcus Du Sautoy : Free Download

Before then I immaturely decided I would specialise in pure maths without really considering what applied maths would be like at university. Mathematicians knew, however, that proving the Riemann Hypothesis would be of far greater significance for the future of mathematics than knowing that Fermat’s equation has no solutions. So each imaginary number, like -3+4 i, just became a point in this map: go 3 units west and 4 units north. The number of sides on the dice increases as we test larger numbers and Gauss discovered that the logarithm function could tell him the number of sides needed.

The author compares prime numbers to the chemist's Periodic Table except that there are an infinite number of prime numbers. Even with the advent of supercomputers and the finding of prime numbers with a million digits, which still fulfil the hypothesis, it has not been proven satisfactorily. Thank to them, you can enter your credit card numbers, knowing that even if someone intercepts the data it will be completely useless to them. There really is a sound/frequency associated with each of these "magical" numbers that are the building blocks of every other number.

The Music of the Primes by Marcus du Sautoy Review: The Music of the Primes by Marcus du Sautoy

Connes’s audacious belief that his new geometry could unmask not only the world of quantum physics but explain the Riemann Hypothesis – the greatest mystery about numbers – was met with surprise and even shock. The implications of this go over my head (I didn't get that far in complex analysis, sadly), but I gather that proving the Hypothesis could lead to, say, an easy way to generate prime numbers, and thus, potentially, an easy way to break RSA encryption. Marcus du Sautoy's enthusiasm shines through every line of this hymnto the joy of high intelligence, illuminating as it does so even the darkestcorners of his most arcane universe.At the heart of the presentation was an idea, a hypothesis, that Riemann had not yet proved but which has come to obsess mathematicians for the last 150 years. This book covers a lot of different topics about prime numbers, moving quickly into general statements and conjectures, and spends a lot of time at the heart of the prime number problem, the Riemann Hypothesis. Nearly 150 years ago, a German mathematician named Bernard Riemann came as close as anyone has ever come to solving this problem. it was at the summer of 2009 when i was first introduced to the beauty and strength of the primes when the instructor asked us to implement some factorization problems in my second programming course, it was at that class where he shed a little light on the true beauty of primes talking about RSA encryption which is discussed in a late chapter of the book.