MATH 420
Analytic Number Theory Spring 2018
Division III Quantitative/Formal Reasoning
This is not the current course catalog

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How many primes are smaller than x? How many divisors does an integer n have? How many different numbers appear in the N x N multiplication table? Over the course of the past 150 years, tremendous progress has been made towards resolving these and similar questions in number theory, relying on tools and methods from analysis. The goal of this tutorial is to explain and motivate the ubiquitous appearance of analysis in modern number theory–a surprising fact, given that analysis is concerned with continuous functions, while number theory is concerned with discrete objects (integers, primes, divisors, etc). Topics to be covered include: asymptotic analysis, partial and Euler-Maclaurin summation, counting divisors and Dirichlet’s hyperbola method, the randomness of prime factorization and the Erdos-Kac theorem, the partition function and the saddle point method, the prime number theorem and the Riemann zeta function, primes in arithmetic progressions and Dirichlet L-functions, the Goldbach conjecture and the circle method, gaps between primes, and other topics as time and interest allow.
The Class: Format: tutorial
Limit: 10
Expected: 10
Class#: 3685
Grading: no pass/fail option, no fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: tutorial format (problem sets and presentations)
Extra Info: may not be taken on a pass/fail basis; not available for the fifth course option
Prerequisites: MATH 350 or MATH 351, MATH 372 (may be taken concurrently), familiarity with modular arithmetic
Enrollment Preferences: Mathematics majors
Distributions: Division III Quantitative/Formal Reasoning

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