Diophantus and Diophantine Equations
Diophantus and Diophantine Equations
£22.99
GBPThis book tells the story of Diophantine analysis, a subject that, owing to its thematic proximity to algebraic geometry, became fashionable in the last half century and has remained so ever since. This new treatment of the methods of Diophantus - a person whose very existence has long been doubted by most historians of mathematics - will be accessible to readers who have taken some university mathematics. It includes the elementary facts of algebraic geometry indispensable for its understanding. The heart of the book is a fascinating account of the development of Diophantine methods during the Renaissance and in the work of Fermat. This account is continued to our own day and ends with an afterword by Joseph Silverman who notes the most recent developments including the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.
- Afterword by Professor Joseph Silverman, expert on Fermat's Last Theorem
- Lots of historical details
- Ever-popular subject
Product details
June 1998Paperback
9780883855263
103 pages
217 × 147 × 7 mm
0.14kg
This item is not supplied by Cambridge University Press in your region. Please contact Mathematical Association of America for availability.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- 1. Diophantus
- 2. Numbers and symbols
- 3. Diophantine equations
- 4. Evaluation of Diophantus' methods by historians of science
- 5. Indeterminate quadratic equations
- 6. Indeterminate cubic equations
- 7. Diophantus and number theory
- 8. Diophantus and the mathematicians of the 15th and 16th centuries
- 9. Diophantus' methods in the works of Viete and Fermat
- 10. Diophantine equations in the works of Euler and Jacobi: addition of points on an elliptic curve
- 11. The geometric meaning of the operation of addition of points
- 12. The arithmetic of algebraic curves
- 13. Conclusion
- 14. Supplement: the role of concrete numbers in Diophantus' 'Arithmetic'.
