Number Theory: A Programmer's Guide [Hardcover]

Mark Herkommer (Author)

Book Description

Series: Software Development (Mcgraw-Hill) | Publication Date: October 1998

Of particular interest to software engineers involved in security and encryption, this package concentrates on the application of number theory in software development. The disk includes all the code and worked through examples featured in the book.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Put number theory to work in real-life code - Number Theory A Programmer's Guide. It's here... the first book to survey a full range of problems in number theory and apply it to the real world for real programmers. With many examples and solutions written in highly portable C, this down-to-earth guide shows you one step at a time how to apply number theory to computing tasks such as: Finding Prime Numbers and Factorizatrion. Solving Diophantine Equations. Trial-and-Error Solution Strategies. Algorithm Design. Multiple Precision Arithmetic. If you've grown weary of number theory programming books that purport to be for programmers, and refer to computers as 'computing machines," then you're ready for Mark Herkommer's Number Theory. In this one essential resource, you'll get a modern, nuts-and-bolts take on number theory that caters to practically all your on-the-job programming needs-in language you can understand and put to work right away. In addition, you get enjoyable number curios that challenged and amused ancient mathematicians, easily crunchable with today's computers-plus some thought-provoking, still-unsolved problems. Whatever industry you're in, whatever the application, Number Theory covers only the theory you need to give you the fast, accurate solutions you want.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 425 pages
• Publisher: Mcgraw-Hill (Tx) (October 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0079130747
• ISBN-13: 978-0079130747
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,606,020 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Top-notch programs, but unforgivable text misprints., July 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Number Theory: A Programmer's Guide (Hardcover)

The misspelling on the cover (developement) is a portent of what lies within. This book covers a lot of good material, and the programs are well-written. If I could stop here the book would rate five stars.

Unfortunately, the text is loaded with typographical errors, more than I have ever seen before in a hardback. If you are willing to decipher the text, you will find that Mr. Herkommer has put together a nice package of number-theoretic programs.

I enjoyed the book despite its shortcomings.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A terrific book, if you can get over the misprints., June 21, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Number Theory: A Programmer's Guide (Hardcover)

This book is for anyone who is interested in reproducing or applying number-theoretic results in C. The central problem is that it appears that the book has not been copy-edited, nor is there any evidence that it has been proof-read. Indeed, this is easily the most typo-riddled book that I have ever encountered. Sometimes the typos are just annoying, at other times they create a real obstacle to understanding. For example, anyone wishing to learn about the four color theorem will have to look elsewhere--the short discussion is marred by a nonsensical sentence. The proof of the claim that there is no highest prime also contains a fatal misprint. And the discussion of the Greatest Common Divisor seems to distinguish between two functions, gcd and GCD. But, after much re-reading, it is clear that this is not the case.

That McGraw Hill should charge $65 for this is obscene. The presence of misprints in a technical book is particularly unforgivable, for each newly-discovered misprint significantly undermines the reader's confidence in the accuracy of a given proof or claim.

That said, two minor cavils: (1) The discussion of complexity theory easily assumes as much as it delivers. Anyone hoping to learn about measuring algorithmic complexity should go somewhere else. (2) The author cites a book published in 1971 as containing the first formal statement of the principle of mathematical induction; evidently he is not aware that Frege gave a formal proof of the principle in 1879.

Finally: I would have given the book five stars if it had not been so badly produced (there really is a lot of good stuff here that can't be found anywhere else), but since McGraw-Hill did such a shoddy job, I can only give it three.

NB: A previous reader complains that she cannot locate a header file (numtype.h) that is essential for running any of the programs in this book. Hello! It's on the cd that comes with the book--you can't miss it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good code, mediocre explanations, rampant typos, August 6, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Number Theory: A Programmer's Guide (Hardcover)

I agree with the other reviewers concerning good code and rampant typos. However, the author seems to think the audience is captive, and is willing to put up with his idiosynchracies. [I for one am not.] As an example, much discussion is devoted to the comparison of the GCD algorithm variants, so much so that one of the variants, Left Shift Binary, is "name-dropped" in the middle of the text, leaving the reader wondering why it deserves mention. The Least Remainder variant is missing critical information on the modulo arithmetic operation - namely, that '%' gives the same result on argument pairs with differing signs, even though the quotient is not the same as with same sign pairs. '%' just works, and that's all we are expected to care about.

Overall, the book appears more like a user manual: the code works, and is packaged for the user. Code applications are covered in the "manual".