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Factorization and Primality Testing (Hardcover, 1989 ed.)
Loot Price: R1,732
Discovery Miles 17 320
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Factorization and Primality Testing (Hardcover, 1989 ed.)
Series: Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
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"About binomial theorems I'm teeming with a lot of news, With many
cheerful facts about the square on the hypotenuse. " - William S.
Gilbert (The Pirates of Penzance, Act I) The question of
divisibility is arguably the oldest problem in mathematics. Ancient
peoples observed the cycles of nature: the day, the lunar month,
and the year, and assumed that each divided evenly into the next.
Civilizations as separate as the Egyptians of ten thousand years
ago and the Central American Mayans adopted a month of thirty days
and a year of twelve months. Even when the inaccuracy of a 360-day
year became apparent, they preferred to retain it and add five
intercalary days. The number 360 retains its psychological appeal
today because it is divisible by many small integers. The technical
term for such a number reflects this appeal. It is called a
"smooth" number. At the other extreme are those integers with no
smaller divisors other than 1, integers which might be called the
indivisibles. The mystic qualities of numbers such as 7 and 13
derive in no small part from the fact that they are indivisibles.
The ancient Greeks realized that every integer could be written
uniquely as a product of indivisibles larger than 1, what we
appropriately call prime numbers. To know the decomposition of an
integer into a product of primes is to have a complete description
of all of its divisors.
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