The New Book of Prime Number Records (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

Third Edition P. Ribenboim The New Book of Prime Number Records "A number-theoretical version of the Guinness Book of Records . . . There is much mathematics to be found in these pages. These are records given here as well. This book is written with much wit. Experts may not find much that is new, but it is always worthwhile to view the history of a subject as a whole rather than a collection of isolated results."—MATHEMATICAL REVIEWS

Product Description

The Guinness Book made records immensely popular. This book is devoted, at first glance, to present records concerning prime numbers. But it is much more. It explores the interface between computations and the theory of prime numbers. The book contains an up-to-date historical presentation of the main problems about prime numbers, as well as many fascinating topics, including primality testing. It is written in a language without secrets, and thoroughly accessible to everyone. The new edition has been significantly improved due to a smoother presentation, many new topics and updated records.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 572 pages
• Publisher: Springer; 3rd edition (February 2, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0387944575
• ISBN-13: 978-0387944579
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #847,748 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great, but seriously misrepresented, January 5, 2007

By	CubeBoy (Los Angeles CA) - See all my reviews

This is a fascinating and arguably essential book for mathematically-sophisticated people who want a rigorous overview of prime numbers and related aspects of number theory. It's widely cited in other books, which is how I found it.

The title sounds like it's just a book about the largest prime numbers, but it's far, far more than that, including proofs of virtually all prime number theorems, a great many algorithms for generating primes, computational aspects of generating and testing primes, cryptographic applications, and much more.

The author is a skilled mathematician who is able to write about advanced mathematics in a remarkably clear, even jovial style.

However: the Amazon description says it is "thoroughly accessible to everyone". Utter nonsense.

This quote is actually a truncated version of one on the back of the book, which says it is "...thoroughly accessible to everyone with some mathematical education".

Well, "thoroughly accessible" and "some mathematical education" are relative terms. If you think it means you will understand this book if you took 3 or 4 years of high school math -- algebra, geometry, trig, pre-calculus -- you will be rudely shocked. Even a year or two of college math classes may be insufficient.

While you don't necessarily need an undergraduate degree in mathematics to appreciate this book, it wouldn't hurt -- it's used in graduate math courses.

But if you have the interest, and sufficient background, you should definitely buy this book. And by all means, consider a used copy -- I paid about $20 and it was fine. I think the large number of (barely) used copies available on Amazon has something to do with the number of people who bought it without realizing what they were getting into. If you have the requisite background, you would not let this book go.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A glorious book, April 17, 2000

By	Jerry Smith "boopsce" (Olympia, WA) - See all my reviews

This book is a must have for anybody interested in number theory. It contains a treasure trove of solved and unsolved problems in number theory and records related to them and is highly entertaining.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A review of a review, without a review., April 17, 2008

By	P. Hendrick (TX) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've given this book 5 stars without ever having laid eyes on an actual copy or held one in my hand, for the following reasons:
(1) I looked at pages from this book with Amazon's viewer , and saw an impressive table of contents, an impressive excerpt from the first few pages, and an IMPRESSIVE bibliography of about 76 pages!
(2) The two earlier reviewers who seemed to know what the material entails, and who (I presume) had actually read the book, gave it 5 stars.
(3) I came to Amazon's listing of this book because I had seen SO MANY references to it from other authors who were knowledgeable in this field, both in their books and in articles on the Web.

I don't usually review works I haven't read, but felt I had to add my two cents worth to this discussion after I read the trash contained in the review by the person who obviously has no mathematical talent, said as much, and then proceeded to pan the book based on what are either outright misconceptions or metaphysical ramblings. I've got my doubts that he actually read that much of it either! I felt compelled to right the wrong done by his low rating. The funny thing, his rating would have applied to ANY OTHER book on this subject written by a competent person.

For what it's worth, I'm a college-level math instructor, have a master's degree in math, have interest in this subject but don't specialize in it, would like a copy of this book (as well as a whole lot of other books), but on my limited book budget I'm going to hold off until I can find a much cheaper used copy (as one reviewer implied were available, though I didn't see such a bargain on the current listings).