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[A portmanteau review of all three 2003 Riemann
Hypothesis books] By Jonathan P. Keating John Derbyshire has a background in mathematics but now works as a novelist and journalist. His book Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics is the most unusual [i.e. of the three books under review]. The odd-numbered chapters contain mathematical material, and the even-numbered ones contain historical and background information. Derbyshire's book includes significantly more mathematics than the others, but it is still accessible to anyone comfortable with simple mathematical formulas. The author's goal is to explain Riemann's connection between the primes and the zeros of the zeta function, as well as other important 20th-century mathematical developments. For Derbyshire to have pulled his objective off so successfully is a remarkable achievement. .... And finally, for readers who seek a deeper level of understanding of the hypothesis and more biographical details about Riemann, Derbyshire's remarkable book is, in my view, a gem. |
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