This book arose from a course of lectures given by the first author during the winter term 1977/1978 at the University of Münster (West Germany). The course was primarily addressed to future high school teachers of mathematics; it was not meant as a systematic introduction to number theory but rather as a historically motivated invitation to the subject, designed to interest the audience in number-theoretical questions and developments. This is also the objective of this book, which is certainly not meant to replace any of the existing excellent texts in number theory. Our selection of topics and examples tries to show how, in the historical development, the investigation of obvious or natural questions has led to more and more comprehensive and profound theories, how again and again, surprising connections between seemingly unrelated problems were discovered, and how the introduction of new methods and concepts led to the solution of hitherto unassailable questions. All this means that we do not present the student with polished proofs (which in turn are the fruit of a long historical development); rather, we try to show how these theorems are the necessary consequences of natural questions. Two examples might illustrate our objectives.

Translated from the German by Bühler, W.K.; Cornell, G.

Lecture I The Early History of Fermat's Last Theorem.- 1 The Problem.- 2 Early Attempts.- 3 Kummer's Monumental Theorem.- 4 Regular Primes.- 5 Kummer's Work on Irregular Prime Exponents.- 6 Other Relevant Results.- 7 The Golden Medal and the Wolfskehl Prize.- Lecture II Recent Results.- 1 Stating the Results.- 2 Explanations.- Lecture III B.K. = Before Kummer.- 1 The Pythagorean Equation.- 2 The Biquadratic Equation.- 3 The Cubic Equation.- 4 The Quintic Equation.- 5 Fermat's Equation of Degree Seven.- Lecture IV The Naïve Approach.- 1 The Relations of Barlow and Abel.- 2 Sophie Germain.- 3 Co.

First published in 1979 and written by two distinguished mathematicians with a special gift for exposition, this book is now available in a completely revised third edition. It reflects the exciting developments in number theory during the past two decades that culminated in the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. Intended as a upper level textbook, it

Modern number theory began with the work of Euler and Gauss to understand and extend the many unsolved questions left behind by Fermat. In the course of their investigations, they uncovered new phenomena in need of explanation, which over time led to the discovery of field theory and its intimate connection with complex multiplication. While most texts concentrate on only the elementary or advanced aspects of this story, Primes of the Form x2 + ny2 begins with Fermat and explains how his work ultimately gave birth to quadratic reciprocity and the genus theory of quadratic forms. Further, the book shows how the results of Euler and Gauss can be fully understood only in the context of class field theory. Finally, in order to bring class field theory down to earth, the book explores some of the magnificent formulas of complex multiplication. The central theme of the book is the story of which primes p can be expressed in the form x2 + ny2. An incomplete answer is given using quadratic forms. A better though abstract answer comes from class field theory, and finally, a concrete answer is provided by complex multiplication. Along the way, the reader is introduced to some wonderful number theory. Numerous exercises and examples are included. The book is written to be enjoyed by readers with modest mathematical backgrounds. Chapter 1 uses basic number theory and abstract algebra, while chapters 2 and 3 require Galois theory and complex analysis, respectively.

This volume contains the proceedings of the very successful second China-Japan Seminar held in lizuka, Fukuoka, Japan, during March 12-16, 2001 under the support of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC), and some invited papers of eminent number-theorists who visited Japan during 1999-2001 at the occasion of the Conference at the Research Institute of Mathematical Sciences (RIMS), Kyoto University. The proceedings of the 1st China-Japan Seminar held in September 1999 in Beijing has been published recently {2002) by Kluwer as DEVM 6 which also contains some invited papers. The topics of that volume are, however, restricted to analytic number theory and many papers in this field are assembled. In this volume, we return to the lines of the previous one "Number Theory and its Applications", published as DEVM 2 by Kluwer in 1999 and uphold the spirit of presenting various topics in number theory and related areas with possible applica tions, in a unified manner, and this time in nearly a book form with a well-prepared index. We accomplish this task by collecting highly informative and readable survey papers (including half-survey type papers), giving overlooking surveys of the hith erto obtained results in up-to-the-hour form with insight into the new developments, which are then analytically continued to a collection of high standard research papers which are concerned with rather diversed areas and will give good insight into new researches in the new century.

Updated to reflect current research, Algebraic Number Theory and Fermat’s Last Theorem, Fourth Edition introduces fundamental ideas of algebraic numbers and explores one of the most intriguing stories in the history of mathematics—the quest for a proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem. The authors use this celebrated theorem to motivate a general study of the theory of algebraic numbers from a relatively concrete point of view. Students will see how Wiles’s proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem opened many new areas for future work. New to the Fourth Edition Provides up-to-date information on unique prime factorization for real quadratic number fields, especially Harper’s proof that Z(√14) is Euclidean Presents an important new result: Mihăilescu’s proof of the Catalan conjecture of 1844 Revises and expands one chapter into two, covering classical ideas about modular functions and highlighting the new ideas of Frey, Wiles, and others that led to the long-sought proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem Improves and updates the index, figures, bibliography, further reading list, and historical remarks Written by preeminent mathematicians Ian Stewart and David Tall, this text continues to teach students how to extend properties of natural numbers to more general number structures, including algebraic number fields and their rings of algebraic integers. It also explains how basic notions from the theory of algebraic numbers can be used to solve problems in number theory.

A unique synthesis of the three existing Fourier-analytictreatments of quadratic reciprocity. The relative quadratic case was first settled by Hecke in 1923,then recast by Weil in 1964 into the language of unitary grouprepresentations. The analytic proof of the general n-th order caseis still an open problem today, going back to the end of Hecke'sfamous treatise of 1923. The Fourier-Analytic Proof of QuadraticReciprocity provides number theorists interested in analyticmethods applied to reciprocity laws with a unique opportunity toexplore the works of Hecke, Weil, and Kubota. This work brings together for the first time in a single volume thethree existing formulations of the Fourier-analytic proof ofquadratic reciprocity. It shows how Weil's groundbreakingrepresentation-theoretic treatment is in fact equivalent to Hecke'sclassical approach, then goes a step further, presenting Kubota'salgebraic reformulation of the Hecke-Weil proof. Extensivecommutative diagrams for comparing the Weil and Kubotaarchitectures are also featured. The author clearly demonstrates the value of the analytic approach,incorporating some of the most powerful tools of modern numbertheory, including adèles, metaplectric groups, andrepresentations. Finally, he points out that the critical commonfactor among the three proofs is Poisson summation, whosegeneralization may ultimately provide the resolution for Hecke'sopen problem.