Writing
7 posts tagged "Number Theory"
We explore the Riemann Hypothesis — the conjecture that all non-trivial zeros of the Riemann zeta function have real part 1/2 — its deep connections to prime numbers, and why it remains the most important open problem in mathematics.
The dramatic story of Andrew Wiles's seven-year secret quest to prove Fermat's Last Theorem — a problem that had defied the world's greatest mathematicians for over 350 years.
We trace the 358-year history of Fermat's Last Theorem — from Fermat's tantalizing margin note to Andrew Wiles's monumental proof via elliptic curves and modular forms — and explain the mathematical ideas that made the proof possible.
The life of Carl Friedrich Gauss, the child prodigy from Brunswick who became the greatest mathematician of his era, making foundational contributions to number theory, geometry, statistics, and physics.
We explore the Prime Number Theorem — the asymptotic law governing the distribution of prime numbers — its history from Gauss and Legendre to the landmark proofs by Hadamard and de la Vallée-Poussin, and the deep connection between primes and the Riemann zeta function.
The extraordinary story of Srinivasa Ramanujan, who rose from poverty in colonial India to produce some of the most beautiful and mysterious formulas in the history of mathematics, only to die at the age of thirty-two.
We explore Euler's identity e^{iπ} + 1 = 0 — often called the most beautiful equation in mathematics — tracing its origins in complex analysis, proving it via Taylor series, and examining why it unifies five fundamental constants.