Abstract
THIS book must be welcomed most warmly into X the select class of Oxford books on pure mathematics which have reached a second edition. It obviously appeals to a large class of mathematical readers. One reason for this is clear. Any mathematician, not necessarily an expert in theory of numbers, can start almost anywhere id the book and turn over a few pages, and find a discussion of some problem which he can understand, and which is solved by elementary arguments in a comparatively short space ; in spite of which it may have taken someone the best part of his life to solve it. It is sometimes objected that these problems are not important, and that they represent a sort of mathematical golf. This is largely a question of point of view. It may not be important to get little white balls into little round holes, but many people spend a great deal of time in doing so nevertheless.
An Introduction to the Theory of Numbers
By Prof. G. H. Hardy Prof. E. M. Wright. Second edition. Pp. xvi + 408. (Oxford: Clarendon Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1945.) 25s. net.
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T., E. An Introduction to the Theory of Numbers. Nature 157, 390 (1946). https://doi.org/10.1038/157390a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/157390a0