The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Number Theory

"Number theory is one of the oldest and noblest branches of mathematics; indeed, it was already ancient in the time of Euclid...for almost all of its history it has seemed to be among the purest branches of mathematics. It is only within the last few decades that a large number of applications have been encountered, at least by the mathematical community. The applications to cryptology are now famous; but it is not as well known that number theory has found an enormous number and variety of real-world applications in many different fields." - From the Preface This book is based on the AMS Short Course, The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Number Theory, held in Orono, Maine, in August 1991. This Short Course provided some views into the great breadth of application of number theory outside cryptology and highlighted the power and applicability of number-theoretic ideas. Because number theory is one of the most accessible areas of mathematics, this book will appeal to a general mathematical audience as well as to researchers in other areas of science and engineering who wish to learn how number theory is being applied outside of mathematics. All of the chapters are written by leading specialists in number theory and provides excellent introduction to various applications.