No label defined (Q4937705)

This delightful and readable book (booklet, really) provides a fine and efficient entry to modern number theory. Its spirit is pleasantly encapsulated in the following words from its introduction: ``It is said that there is no unexplored place on the earth any longer, but the world of numbers is still full of mysteries \dots . Wandering naively in the wonderland of numbers, we would like to describe in this book the intricate world of numbers that modern number theory has discovered. We will be very happy if the reader discovers the wonders of numbers and the grandeur of nature.'' As introduction we first wander past several of Fermat's interests, thus past issues of representation of numbers as sums of squares and as more general forms., providing a fine motivation for the subsequent chapters. They are titled: 1. Rational Points on Elliptic Curves (Fermat and elliptic curves, group structure, Mordell's theorem); 2. Conics and \(p\)-adic Numbers (Conics, congruence, conics and quadratic residue symbols, \(p\)-adic number fields; multiplicative structure of such fields, rational points on conics); 3. \(\zeta\) (Three wonders of the values of the \(\zeta\) function, values at positive integers, values at negative integers); 4. Algebraic Number Theory (Method and heart of algebraic number theory, the class number formula for imaginary quadratic fields. Fermat's Last Theorem and Kummer). There's an appendix on Dedekind domains (and hence fractional ideals). There are occasional questions and exercises, answered at the end of the volume. The sequence in which one meets topics is, happily, very different from that of most (perhaps all other) texts. There is little prerequisite. Certainly anyone likely to read this report will profit from reading the book; here not necessarily all that senior students will be similarly enriched. On the downside: the translation is not always perfect and the technical demands on the reader vary substantially. Nonetheless, the readily accessible oases are many.