Perfect for students approaching the subject for the first time, this book offers a superb overview of number theory. Now in its second edition, it has been thoroughly updated to feature up-to-the-minute treatments of key research, such as the most recent work on Fermat's coast theorem. Topics include divisibility and multiplicative functions, congruences and quadratic resolves, the basics of algebraic numbers and sums of squares, continued fractions, diophantine approximations and transcendence, quadratic forms, partitions, the prime numbers, diophantine equations, and elliptic curves. More...

In algebra, an entity is called linear if it can be expressed in terms of addition, and multiplication by a scalar; a linear expression is a sum of scalar multiples of the entities under consideration. Also, an operation is called linear if it preserves addition, and multiplication by a scalar. For example, if A and Bare 2 x 2 real matrices, v is a (row) vector in the real plane, and c is a real number, then v(A + B) = vA + vB and (cv)A = c(vA), that is, the process of applying a matrix to a vector is linear. Linear Algebra is the study of properties and systems which preserve these two...