Der Autor prasentiert in dem Band die grundlegenden Satze und die wichtigsten ungelosten Probleme aus der Welt der Primzahlen. Begleitet wird diese umfassende Darstellung zu den elementaren Bausteinen der naturlichen Zahlen von einer einmaligen Sammlung zu den Primzahlrekorden. In der englischen Originalfassung fast schon ein Klassiker, erscheint das Buch jetzt in der 2., vollstandig uberarbeiteten und aktualisierten Auflage."

This text originated as a lecture delivered November 20, 1984, at Queen's University, in the undergraduate colloquim series established to honor Professors A. J. Coleman and H. W. Ellis and to acknow ledge their long lasting interest in the quality of teaching under graduate students. In another colloquim lecture, my colleague Morris Orzech, who had consulted the latest edition of the Guilllless Book oj Records, remainded me very gently that the most "innumerate" people of the world are of a certain tribe in Mato Grosso, Brazil. They do not even have a word to express the number "two" or the...

In his studies of cyclotomic fields, in view of establishing his monumental theorem about Fermat's last theorem, Kummer introduced "local" methods. They are concerned with divisibility of "ideal numbers" of cyclotomic fields by lambda = 1 - psi where psi is a primitive p-th root of 1 (p any odd prime). Henssel developed Kummer's ideas, constructed the field of p-adic numbers and proved the fundamental theorem known today. Kurschak formally introduced the concept of a valuation of a field, as being real valued functions on the set of non-zero elements of the field satisfying...

This text originated as a lecture delivered November 20, 1984, at Queen's University, in the undergraduate colloquium senes. In another colloquium lecture, my colleague Morris Orzech, who had consulted the latest edition of the Guinness Book of Records, reminded me very gently that the most "innumerate" people of the world are of a certain trible in Mato Grosso, Brazil. They do not even have a word to express the number "two" or the concept of plurality. "Yes, Morris, I'm from Brazil, but my book will contain numbers different from -one.''' He added that the most boring 800-page book is by...

In 1995, Andrew Wiles completed a proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. Although this was certainly a great mathematical feat, one shouldn't dismiss earlier attempts made by mathematicians and clever amateurs to solve the problem. In this book, aimed at amateurs curious about the history of the subject, the author restricts his attention exclusively to elementary methods that have produced rich results.

Prime Numbers, Friends Who Give Problems is written as a trialogue, with two persons who are interested in prime numbers asking the author, Papa Paulo, intelligent questions. Starting at a very elementary level, the book advances steadily, covering all important topics of the theory of prime numbers, up to the most famous problems. The humorous conversations and the inclusion of a back-story add to the uniqueness of the book. Concepts and results are also explained with great care, making the book accessible to a wide audience.

Prime Numbers, Friends Who Give Problems is written as a trialogue, with two persons who are interested in prime numbers asking the author, Papa Paulo, intelligent questions. Starting at a very elementary level, the book advances steadily, covering all important topics of the theory of prime numbers, up to the most famous problems. The humorous conversations and the inclusion of a back-story add to the uniqueness of the book. Concepts and results are also explained with great care, making the book accessible to a wide audience.

Together, these volumes include papers on algebraic structures on directed graphs, real algebraic geometry, applications of model theory in collaboration with Lou van dem Dries, and more recent papers with Sibylla Priess-Crampe on mathematical logic programming and Ultrametric spaces.