Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics
John Derbyshire
422 pages, Paperback
ISBN: 0452285259
ISBN13:
Language: English
Publish: May 25, 2004
BiographyHistoryHistory Of ScienceMathematicsNonfictionNumberPhysicsPopular ScienceScienceTechnology
In 1859, Bernhard Riemann, a little-known thirty-two year old mathematician, made a hypothesis while presenting a paper to the Berlin Academy titled “On the Number of Prime Numbers Less Than a Given Quantity.” Today, after 150 years of careful research and exhaustive study, the Riemann Hypothesis remains unsolved, with a one-million-dollar prize earmarked for the first person to conquer it. 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.