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

Published 06/09/2004 | Paperback / softback,
Description:

20 years later The Music of the Primes is still a groundbreaking popular science book. This new edition features updates from the author and a foreword by actor and director, Simon McBurney.

In 1859, the German mathematician Bernhard Riemann presented a paper to the Berlin Academy which would change the history of mathematics. The subject was the strange and enigmatic prime numbers. 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. No one knows if he ever found the proof; on his death his housekeeper burnt all the personal papers. Today, the hypothesis is considered by many the holy grail of mathematics but has significance far beyond maths.

At the of the heart of the enigma is a prize much larger than just intellectual glory; not only is there a $1 million reward for the person who can crack it but also is the key to all banking and e-commerce security. It is the idea that brings together many other areas of science and has ramifications within Quantum Mechanics, Chaos Theory and the future of computing.

In ‘The Music of the Primes’, one of Britain’s leading mathematicians, Marcus du Sautoy, recounts the history of these elusive numbers. It is a story of eccentric and brilliant men, last minute escapes from death, strange journeys, dangerous ideas and the unquenchable thirst for knowledge that drove some men mad and others to unparalleled glory. du Sautoy also tells a coruscating history of Mathematics. Combining in-depth knowledge as a practitioner in the field with narrative flair, this book will become a classic of popular science writing and will rank alongside ‘Chaos’ and ‘Fermat’s Last Theorem’ within the genre.

The Riemann Hypothesis:* Compared to Fermat’s Last Theorem, the Hypothesis is mathematicians’ real Holy Grail* Is the only problem from Hilbert’s 1900 Centenary Problems that was unproved in the 20th century and now has a $1 million reward for the person who cracks it.

* The Hypothesis is the key to all Internet and e-commerce security