Irrationality And Transcendence In Number Theory

Irrationality and Transcendence in Number Theory tells the story of irrational numbers from their discovery in the days of Pythagoras to the ideas behind the work of Baker and Mahler on transcendence in the 20th century. It focuses on themes of irrationality, algebraic and transcendental numbers, continued fractions, approximation of real numbers by rationals, and relations between automata and transcendence. This book serves as a guide and introduction to number theory for advanced undergraduates and early postgraduates. Readers are led through the developments in number theory from ancient to modern times. The book includes a wide range of exercises, from routine problems to surprising and thought-provoking extension material. Features Uses techniques from widely diverse areas of mathematics, including number theory, calculus, set theory, complex analysis, linear algebra, and the theory of computation. Suitable as a primary textbook for advanced undergraduate courses in number theory, or as supplementary reading for interested postgraduates. Each chapter concludes with an appendix setting out the basic facts needed from each topic, so that the book is accessible to readers without any specific specialist background.

This book is a survey of the most important directions of research in transcendental number theory. For readers with no specific background in transcendental number theory, the book provides both an overview of the basic concepts and techniques and also a guide to the most important results and references.

This book provides an introduction to the topic of transcendental numbers for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students. The text is constructed to support a full course on the subject, including descriptions of both relevant theorems and their applications. While the first part of the book focuses on introducing key concepts, the second part presents more complex material, including applications of Baker’s theorem, Schanuel’s conjecture, and Schneider’s theorem. These later chapters may be of interest to researchers interested in examining the relationship between transcendence and L-functions. Readers of this text should possess basic knowledge of complex analysis and elementary algebraic number theory.

In this monograph, Ivan Niven provides a masterful exposition of some central results on irrational, transcendental, and normal numbers. He gives a complete treatment by elementary methods of the irrationality of the exponential, logarithmic, and trigonometric functions with rational arguments. The approximation of irrational numbers by rationals, up to such results as the best possible approximation of Hurwitz, is also given with elementary techniques. The last third of the monograph treats normal and transcendental numbers, including the transcendence of p and its generalization in the Lindermann theorem, and the Gelfond-Schneider theorem. Most of the material in the first two thirds of the book presupposes only calculus and beginning number theory. The book is almost wholly self-contained. The results needed from analysis and algebra are central and well-known theorems, and complete references to standard works are given to help the beginner. The chapters are, for the most part, independent. There is a set of notes at the end of each chapter citing the main sources used by the author and suggesting further reading.

This book is a survey of the most important directions of research in transcendental number theory. For readers with no specific background in transcendental number theory, the book provides both an overview of the basic concepts and techniques and also a guide to the most important results and references.

This book is a survey of the most important directions of research in transcendental number theory. For readers with no specific background in transcendental number theory, the book provides both an overview of the basic concepts and techniques and also a guide to the most important results and references.

This is the first book that makes the difficult and important subject of transcendental number theory accessible to undergraduate mathematics students. Edward Burger is one of the authors of The Heart of Mathematics, winner of a 2001 Robert W. Hamilton Book Award. He will also be awarded the 2004 Chauvenet Prize, one of the most prestigious MAA prizes for outstanding exposition.

First published in 1975, this classic book gives a systematic account of transcendental number theory, that is, the theory of those numbers that cannot be expressed as the roots of algebraic equations having rational coefficients. Their study has developed into a fertile and extensive theory, which continues to see rapid progress today. Expositions are presented of theories relating to linear forms in the logarithms of algebraic numbers, of Schmidt's generalization of the Thue–Siegel–Roth theorem, of Shidlovsky's work on Siegel's E-functions and of Sprindžuk's solution to the Mahler conjecture. This edition includes an introduction written by David Masser describing Baker's achievement, surveying the content of each chapter and explaining the main argument of Baker's method in broad strokes. A new afterword lists recent developments related to Baker's work.