Binding: Hardcover
Description: In 2013, a little known mathematician in his late 50s stunned the mathematical community with a breakthrough on an age - old problem about prime numbers. Since then there has been further dramatic progress on the problem thanks to the efforts of a large - scale online collaborative effort of a type that would have been unthinkable in mathematics a couple of decades ago and the insight and creativity of a young mathematician at the start of his career. Prime numbers have intrigued inspired and infuriated mathematicians for millennia. Every school student studies prime numbers and can appreciate their beauty and yet mathematicians difficulty with answering some seemingly simple questions about them reveals the depth and subtlety of prime numbers. Vicky Neale charts the recent progress towards proving the famous Twin Primes Conjecture and the very different ways in which the breakthroughs have been made: a solo mathematician working in isolation and obscurity and a large collaboration that is more public than any previous collaborative effort in mathematics and that reveals much about how mathematicians go about their work. Interleaved with this story are highlights from a significantly older tale going back two thousand years and more of mathematicians efforts to comprehend the beauty and unlock the mysteries of the prime numbers.
Title: Closing The Gap The Quest To Understand Prime Numbers
Author(s): Neale Vicky (Whitehead Lecturer Whitehead Lecturer Oxford University)
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Barcode: 9780198788287
Pages: 172 Pages
Publication Date: 12/12/2017
Category: History Of Mathematics