Elementary Methods in Number Theory

Аннотация

“A first course in number theory,” is a basic introduction to elementary number theory for undergraduate and graduate students with no previous knowledge of the subject. The only prerequisites are a little calculus and algebra, and the imagination and perseverance to follow a mathematical argument. The main topics are divisibility and congruences. We prove Gauss’s law of quadratic reciprocity, and we determine the moduli for which primitive roots exist. There is an introduction to Fourier analysis on finite abelian groups, with applications to Gauss sums. A chapter is devoted to the abc conjecture, a simply stated but profound assertion about the relationship between the additive and multiplicative properties of integers that is a major unsolved problem in number theory.