No label defined (Q4397694)

Although there is no shortage of undergraduate texts in number theory, this book is a welcome addition to these. The nineteen chapters contain most of what is usually covered in such a text, including contemporary applications of number theory. For example, there are chapters on primitive roots, continued fractions, diophantine equations, Dirichlet series, distribution of primes, quadratic forms and elliptic curves. The material is competently presented and the exposition, which includes many well chosen examples, is very clear. Discussion of the computation of various functions and solutions to equations is often followed by the provision of useful algorithms. One example of this comes during the consideration of quadratic congruences. Whereas many authors are in too much of a hurry to get to the law of quadratic reciprocity and then to stop there, the present text gives a detailed discussion of how to compute the square root of a quadratic residue modulo a prime \(p\). When \(p-1\) contains a large power of 2, an auxilliary quadratic non-residue is needed to build a solution. Suitable examples are given to illustrate the method, and the exposition ends with an algorithm for a computation covering all the cases. Since the applications include cryptography, there is material on primality and factoring, including a section on the elliptic curve method of factorisation. Besides exercises, many of which involve the construction of computer programs, there are also interesting end-of-chapter projects for the reader.