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This book thoroughly examines the distribution of prime numbers in arithmetic progressions. It covers many classical results, including the Dirichlet theorem on the existence of prime numbers in arithmetical progressions, the theorem of Siegel, and functional equations of the L-functions and their consequences for the distribution of prime numbers. In addition, a simplified, improved version of the large sieve method is presented. The 3rd edition includes a large number of revisions and corrections as well as a new section with references to more recent work in the field. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

If you want to be an analytic number theorist
Work through this book. While Serre's A Course in Arithmetic (Graduate Texts in Mathematics) is slicker, it is nowhere near as enlightening. Iwaniec's treatise Analytic Number Theory (Colloquium Publications, Vol. 53) (Colloquium Publications (Amer Mathematical Soc)) is a good reference for professionals, but unreadable for someone who has not seen (a lot of) the material before. Davenport's book is very clear and very deep at the same time. The recent editions of this book have been brought up to date, but the core has not changed too much, so don't feel obligated to buy the latest edition.

An extraordinary Book
Ever since I first read about the prime number theorem, I have been roaming the mathetmatical landscape, looking for the best proof of this result. I believe this book has it. It's not the simplest or the shortest proof, but it gives the deepest understanding of why the prime numbers behve like they do. In addition to this, it shows you the historical perspective in these proofs. All too often today math books give one short and slick proofs that leave you wondering how on earth they came up with it. In this book, however, one can almost feel the thoughts going through Riemann and Dirichlet's heads as they came up with the theorems. This book also has the proof of Dirichlet's theorem and Vinogradov's partial proof of the ternary goldbach conjecture. The vinogradov and following sections are considerably harder, partly because they were not written by Davenport himself. Anyway, if you're serious about Analytic number theory and how mathematicians think, this books needs to be on your bookshelf.

A good historical approach to Analytic Number Theory
I like this book because it gives you a good understanding of where the difficulties in the subject are. It takes a historical approach, following more or less the same steps that the original discoverers of these results took. Today we have very slick proofs for many of these results, and it is sometimes hard to understand why it took so long to discover them in the first place, but this book will give you this understanding; Dirichlet in particular practically had to invent Analytic Number Theory to prove his theorem on primes in an arithmetic progression.

The book works up gradually to each result, for example proving Dirichlet's theorem first for a prime modulus (as Dirichlet did himself), then the general modulus. In most cases it proves first the result for all primes (zeta function) and then the generalization for primes in an arithmetic progression (L function), pointing out which parts generalize easily and which cause special difficulties.

Some of the more advanced results covered are exponential sums, Vinogradov's theorem that every large odd number is the sum of three primes, and Bombieri's theorem about the average distribution of primes in arithmetic progressions.

I haven't seen the previous (1980) edition; this new edition seems to be lightly revised from the previous one. The last chapter is up-to-date and gives a brief survey of new results and of new books on the subject. ... Read more

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Publisher: London : Skeffington ... Read more

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Publisher: Oxford : B. H. BlackwellPublication date: 1916Subjects: Pseudo-Isidorian decretalsNotes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be numerous typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

Product Description
Introduces concepts and theorems in a way that does not assume in-depth knowledge of the theory of numbers. Although primarily for the general reader, this book could be used as a text for an undergraduate course in number theory. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

some basic material explained
The title leads one to higher expectations than the text
actually delivers?
The book has some basic topics in number theory,
but isn't so new or so well written as one might expect.
That the book has gone past seven printing seems to show that it has been a popular seller?
As for me I don't find myself desperate to buy it.

Disappointing
I've purchased this book based on the rave reviews it's received on Amazon.com, both on this page and elsewhere. I've been greatly disappointed.

This is the eighth edition, and, as such, is low on error count, so if all you're looking for in a math textbook is that it be error-free, this may be the book for you.

If you are looking for a little more than that: say, an interesting, well-motivated and pedagogically sound lecture, you'd be better off looking for it elsewhere, for instance in Jones & Jones' superb "Elementary Number Theory".

"The Higher Arithmetic"'s style of writing is unstructured prose (as opposed to the Definition-Theorem-Proof structure), supposedly rendering the text less rigid and more "friendly", when, in fact, it accomplishes the exact opposite effect: You're never sure where a proof begins and where it ends. This compounds unnecessary intellectual and psychological strains on top of those already naturally present whenever one learns new material.

The unstructured-ness also makes this book quite useless as a work of reference.

The proofs aren't particularly elegant or insightful (in fact, they are quite difficult to follow in some cases, for no good reason).

There's very little in terms of historical background and in terms of interesting applications and recreations.

Finally, the book is uncannily devoid of that geeky sense of humor that embellishes the best of math textbooks (e.g. "in this sense, at least, the prime 2 is very odd!", Jones & Jones, 1998, p. 106).

This book can best be recommended to those who have already studied number theory, and would like a refresher of the main topics an introductory course is likely to include.

P.S.
This review is based on my impressions of the first three chapters (which constitute roughly one third of the book in terms of number of pages). I simply couldn't bear reading any further. I can't preclude the possibility that it gets better down the road.

Dated due to lack of material on modern encryption, still suitable for learning number theory
The higher arithmetic is more commonly known as number theory and is one of the most enjoyable and complex areas of mathematics. Simultaneously simple and hard, the problems are generally easy to understand yet can be horrendously difficult to solve. Furthermore, the initial areas of number theory are easy to comprehend; in general it only takes a basic knowledge of algebra to manage the main points.
In this book, Davenport takes you through the basics of number theory, starting with prime factorization and going through some simple Diophantine equations. The chapter titles are:

*) Factorization and the primes
*) Congruences
*) Quadratic residues
*) Continued fractions
*) Sums of squares
*) Quadratic forms
*) Some Diophantine equations

This book is a solid introduction to number theory and can be understood by the advanced high school student. The primary drawback for the modern reader is that there is no coverage of the use of number theory in modern encryption techniques.

Good book, but if you have the money, there are better
Well, this is definitely a very good introduction to number theory.The author provides clear, readable proofs of all the most basic theorems on topics such as congruences, sums of squares, etc.He explains things quite well.However, despite costing almost 2.5 times as much, I would recommend Hardy and Wright's book An Introduction to the Theory of Numbers more highly than Davenport's book.Seriously, although it may seem good that Davenport doesn't require a knowledge of calculus as a prerequisite for his book (which Hardy DOES require), one probably shouldn't learn number theory until one has a good backrground on topics ranging from improper integrals to infinite series.Because Davenport does not require calculus as a prerequisite, he neglects HUGE aspects of what could actually be considered BASIC number theory: namely, the basic analytic aspects (such as Tchebycheff's results on the Prime Number Theorem) and the additive theory (i.e. partitions and such, as well as the basics of the generalized theory surrounding Waring's problem for high powers of integers).So, my recommendation is, wait until you know integral calculus and the theory of infinite series BEFORE buying a book on number theory, and then buy Hardy and Wright's book rather than this one.

This is a MUST BUY if you want to learn Number Theory!
This book is an AMAZING introduction to the Theory of Numbers. It assumes no previous exposure to the subject, or any technical mathematical knowledge for that matter. Its prose is lucid and the style appealing.Davenport chose NOT to write a lemma-theorem-proof kind of book, and theresult is a marvelous, eminently readable introduction to the subject. Itswonderful to read a book where good prose is used to appropiatelysubstitute a massive collection of uninviting symbols. I've also beenreading other books on Number Theory, such as Hardy & Wright, but noneare as clear as this one.

I found the chapter on quadratic residues(which includes the reciprocity law) to be especially well written. Thesection on computers and number theory is excelent as well. A concise andcoherent discussion of crytography and the RSA system is included here.The organization of the book's chapters is fantastic. Each chapter buildsup on results proven in the previous ones, showing well the connectionsbetween the different aspects of Number Theory. The exercises of the bookrange from simple to challenging, but are all accesible to someone willingto put effort into them.

This would be an excelent source for learningnumber theory for mathematical competition purposes, such as the ASHME,AIME, USAMO, and even for the International Mathematical Olympiad. The bookcontains much more than what is needed for these competitions, but theolympiad/contest reader will benefit greatly from a study of Davenport'swork.

The book can certainly be used for an undergraduate course inNumber Theory, though it might need supplementary materials, to cover asemester's worth of work. I know the book has been used in the past inprevious editions as the main text for Math 124: Number Theory at HarvardUniversity.

I would also recommend this book to anyone interested inacquanting themselves with Number Theory.

Awesome!There is simply noother word that describes The Higher Arithmetic. ... Read more

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