An Introduction to Number Theory

An Introduction to Number Theory provides an introduction to the main streams of number theory. Starting with the unique factorization property of the integers, the theme of factorization is revisited several times throughout the book to illustrate how the ideas handed down from Euclid continue to reverberate through the subject. A number of different approaches to number theory are presented, and the different streams in the book are brought together in a chapter that describes the class number formula for quadratic fields and the famous conjectures of Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer. The final chapter introduces some of the main ideas behind modern computational number theory and its applications in cryptography. Written for graduate and advanced undergraduate students of mathematics, this text will also appeal to students in cognate subjects who wish to learn some of the big ideas in number theory.