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Inthe tradition of Fermat's Enigma and Pi, Marcus du Sautoy tells the illuminating, authoritative, and engagingstory of Bernhard Reimann and the ongoing quest tocapture the holy grail of mathematics--the formula to predict prime numbers.Oliver Sacks, author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, calls TheMusic of the Primes "an amazing book. . . . I could not put it down once Ihad started." Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman,writes, "this fascinating account, decoding the inscrutable language of themathematical priesthood, is written like the purest poetry. 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."… (more)
Some interesting biographical info about several of the key players. I didn't find the discussions of their work on primes that illuminating, however. It needed something akin to a "timeline of ideas" to show the various threads and how they were connected. ( )
Very nice history about prime numbers. Riemann hypothesis is not easy to explain it and more difficult to understand it. It's a pity that the demonstration was lost... ( )
We use prime numbers everyday, every internet transaction uses these for security, and de Sautoy here gives us a history of the prime number, from the very early Greek mathematicians, to the modern day.
The primary focus of the book is the Reimann Hypothesis. Du Sautoy gives a very readable history of all the mathematicians who have looked at proving and trying to disprove this. Some of the maths was a bit beyond me, but I did enjoy having my brain stretched. ( )
Wow, I am not mathematically inclined at all but this was a thrill to read. what a talent to bring complex mathematics and the prime numbers to more people. Thanks to Du Sautoy. This book enriched my life. ( )
For the memory of Yonathan du Sautoy October 21, 2000
First words
One hot and humid morning in August 1900, David Hilbert of the University of Göttingen addressed the International Congress of Mathematicians in a packed lecture hall at the Sorbonne, Paris.
Quotations
Information from the Spanish Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
La comprensión del significado de la creatividad matemática es, en el mejor de los casos, difícil, pero la forma de proceder de Ramanujan siempre tuvo algo de misterioso: afirmaba que la diosa Namagiri, protectora de su familia y consorte de Narashima, el dios león, cuarta encarnación de Vishnu, le aportaba sus ideas en sueños. En la aldea de Ramanujan algunos creían que la diosa tenía el poder de exorcizar los demonios; para Ramanujan, Namagiri era la explicación de los relámpagos de iluminación que desencadenaban su flujo ininterrumpido de descubrimientos matemáticos. Ramanujan no es el único ejemplo de matemático para quien el mundo de los sueños resulta ser un territorio fértil para la exploración matemática. Dirichlet tenía las Disquisitiones arithmeticae bajo la almohada, esperando recibir la inspiración para comprender las afirmaciones a menudo crípticas que contenía el libro. En los sueños es como si la mente se liberara de las barreras del mundo real y tuviera la libertad de abrir caminos que se excluyen en estado consciente. Ramanujan parecía capaz de inducir este estado onírico en sus horas de vigilia: un trance así está muy cerca del estado mental que la mayoría de los matemáticos intenta conseguir.
Last words
We still await the person whose name will live for ever as the mathematician who made the primes sing.
Inthe tradition of Fermat's Enigma and Pi, Marcus du Sautoy tells the illuminating, authoritative, and engagingstory of Bernhard Reimann and the ongoing quest tocapture the holy grail of mathematics--the formula to predict prime numbers.Oliver Sacks, author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, calls TheMusic of the Primes "an amazing book. . . . I could not put it down once Ihad started." Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman,writes, "this fascinating account, decoding the inscrutable language of themathematical priesthood, is written like the purest poetry. 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."
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Wikipedia in English (6)
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