Transcendental Number Theory

Alan Baker's systematic account of transcendental number theory, with a new introduction and afterword explaining recent developments.

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.

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 deals with the development of Diophantine problems starting with Thue's path breaking result and culminating in Roth's theorem with applications. It discusses classical results including Hermite–Lindemann–Weierstrass theorem, Gelfond–Schneider theorem, Schmidt’s subspace theorem and more. It also includes two theorems of Ramachandra which are not widely known and other interesting results derived on the values of Weierstrass elliptic function. Given the constantly growing number of applications of linear forms in logarithms, it is becoming increasingly important for any student wanting to work in this area to know the proofs of Baker’s original results. This book presents Baker’s original results in a format suitable for graduate students, with a focus on presenting the content in an accessible and simple manner. Each student-friendly chapter concludes with selected problems in the form of “Exercises” and interesting information presented as “Notes,” intended to spark readers’ curiosity.

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.

Broad graduate-level account of Algebraic Number Theory, first published in 2001, including exercises, by a world-renowned author.