Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

In August 1859 Bernhard Riemann, a little-known 32-year old mathematician, presented a paper to the Berlin Academy titled: "On the Number of Prime Numbers Less Than a Given Quantity." In the middle of that paper, Riemann made an incidental remark â€" a guess, a hypothesis. What he tossed out to the assembled mathematicians that day has proven to be almost cruelly compelling to countless scholars in the ensuing years. Today, after 150 years of careful research and exhaustive study, the question remains. Is the hypothesis true or false? Riemann's basic inquiry, the primary topic of his paper, concerned a straightforward but nevertheless important matter of arithmetic â€" defining a precise formula to track and identify the occurrence of prime numbers. But it is that incidental remark â€" the Riemann Hypothesis â€" that is the truly astonishing legacy of his 1859 paper. Because Riemann was able to see beyond the pattern of the primes to discern traces of something mysterious and mathematically elegant shrouded in the shadows â€" subtle variations in the distribution of those prime numbers. Brilliant for its clarity, astounding for its potential consequences, the Hypothesis took on enormous importance in mathematics. Indeed, the successful solution to this puzzle would herald a revolution in prime number theory. Proving or disproving it became the greatest challenge of the age. It has become clear that the Riemann Hypothesis, whose resolution seems to hang tantalizingly just beyond our grasp, holds the key to a variety of scientific and mathematical investigations. The making and breaking of modern codes, which depend on the properties of the prime numbers, have roots in the Hypothesis. In a series of extraordinary developments during the 1970s, it emerged that even the physics of the atomic nucleus is connected in ways not yet fully understood to this strange conundrum. Hunting down the solution to the Riemann Hypothesis has become an obsession for many â€" the veritable "great white whale" of mathematical research. Yet despite determined efforts by generations of mathematicians, the Riemann Hypothesis defies resolution. Alternating passages of extraordinarily lucid mathematical exposition with chapters of elegantly composed biography and history, Prime Obsession is a fascinating and fluent account of an epic mathematical mystery that continues to challenge and excite the world. Posited a century and a half ago, the Riemann Hypothesis is an intellectual feast for the cognoscenti and the curious alike. Not just a story of numbers and calculations, Prime Obsession is the engrossing tale of a relentless hunt for an elusive proof â€" and those who have been consumed by it.

Eight essays trace seminal ideas about the foundations of geometry that led to the development of Einstein's general theory of relativity. This is the only English-language collection of these important papers, some of which are extremely hard to find. Contributors include Helmholtz, Klein, Clifford, Poincaré, and Cartan.

The name of Bernard Riemann is well known to mathematicians and physicists around the world. His name is indelibly stamped on the literature of mathematics and physics. This remarkable work, rich in insight and scholarship, is addressed to mathematicians, physicists, and philosophers interested in mathematics. It seeks to draw those readers closer to the underlying ideas of Riemann’s work and to the development of them in their historical context. This illuminating English-language version of the original German edition will be an important contribution to the literature of the history of mathematics.

The Riemann Hypothesis has become the Holy Grail of mathematics in the century and a half since 1859 when Bernhard Riemann, one of the extraordinary mathematical talents of the 19th century, originally posed the problem. While the problem is notoriously difficult, and complicated even to state carefully, it can be loosely formulated as "the number of integers with an even number of prime factors is the same as the number of integers with an odd number of prime factors." The Hypothesis makes a very precise connection between two seemingly unrelated mathematical objects, namely prime numbers and the zeros of analytic functions. If solved, it would give us profound insight into number theory and, in particular, the nature of prime numbers. This book is an introduction to the theory surrounding the Riemann Hypothesis. Part I serves as a compendium of known results and as a primer for the material presented in the 20 original papers contained in Part II. The original papers place the material into historical context and illustrate the motivations for research on and around the Riemann Hypothesis. Several of these papers focus on computation of the zeta function, while others give proofs of the Prime Number Theorem, since the Prime Number Theorem is so closely connected to the Riemann Hypothesis. The text is suitable for a graduate course or seminar or simply as a reference for anyone interested in this extraordinary conjecture.

Examines mathematical ideas and the visionary minds behind them. This book provides an account of celebrated mathematicians and their quirks, oddities, personal tragedies, bad behavior, descents into madness, tragic ends, and the beauty of their mathematical discoveries.

This book presents William Clifford’s English translation of Bernhard Riemann’s classic text together with detailed mathematical, historical and philosophical commentary. The basic concepts and ideas, as well as their mathematical background, are provided, putting Riemann’s reasoning into the more general and systematic perspective achieved by later mathematicians and physicists (including Helmholtz, Ricci, Weyl, and Einstein) on the basis of his seminal ideas. Following a historical introduction that positions Riemann’s work in the context of his times, the history of the concept of space in philosophy, physics and mathematics is systematically presented. A subsequent chapter on the reception and influence of the text accompanies the reader from Riemann’s times to contemporary research. Not only mathematicians and historians of the mathematical sciences, but also readers from other disciplines or those with an interest in physics or philosophy will find this work both appealing and insightful.

This book introduces prime numbers and explains the famous unsolved Riemann hypothesis.

Superb high-level study of one of the most influential classics in mathematics examines landmark 1859 publication entitled “On the Number of Primes Less Than a Given Magnitude,” and traces developments in theory inspired by it. Topics include Riemann's main formula, the prime number theorem, the Riemann-Siegel formula, large-scale computations, Fourier analysis, and other related topics. English translation of Riemann's original document appears in the Appendix.