One of the supreme achievements of 19th-century mathematics was the prime number theorem, and it is worth a brief digression. To begin, designate the number of primes less than or equal to n by π(n). Thus π(10) = 4 because 2, 3, 5, and 7 are the four primes not exceeding 10. Similarly π(25) = 9 and π(100) = 25. Next, consider the proportion of numbers less than or equal to n that are prime—i.e., π(n)/n. Clearly π(10)/10 = 0.40, meaning that 40 percent of the numbers not exceeding 10 are prime.
A pattern is anything but clear, but the prime number theorem identifies one, at least approximately, and thereby provides a rule for the distribution of primes among the whole numbers. The theorem says that, for large n, the proportion π(n)/n is roughly 1/log n, where log n is the natural logarithm of n. This link between primes and logs is nothing short of extraordinary.
One of the first to perceive this was the young Gauss, whose examination of log tables and prime numbers suggested it to his fertile mind. Following Dirichlet’s exploitation of analytic techniques in number theory, Bernhard Riemann (1826–66) and Pafnuty Chebyshev (1821–94) made substantial progress before the prime number theorem was proved in 1896 by Jacques Hadamard (1865–1963) and Charles Jean de la Vallée-Poussin (1866–1962). This brought the 19th century to a triumphant close.
Number theory in the 20th century
The next century saw an explosion in number theoretic research. Along with classical and analytic number theory, scholars now explored specialized subfields such as algebraic number theory, geometric number theory, and combinatorial number theory. The concepts became more abstract and the techniques more sophisticated. Unquestionably, the subject had grown beyond Fermat’s wildest dreams.
One of the great contributors from early in the 20th century was the incandescent genius Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887–1920). Ramanujan, whose formal training was as limited as his life was short, burst upon the mathematical scene with a series of brilliant discoveries. Analytic number theory was among his specialties, and his publications carried titles such as “Highly composite numbers” and “Proof that almost all numbers n are composed of about log(log n) prime factors.”
A legendary figure in 20th-century number theory was Paul Erdős (1913–96), a Hungarian genius known for his deep insights, his vast circle of collaborators, and his personal eccentricities. At age 18, Erdős published a much-simplified proof of a theorem of Chebyshev stating that, if n ≥ 2, then there must be a prime between n and 2n. This was the first in a string of number theoretic results that would span most of the century. In the process, Erdős—who also worked in combinatorics, graph theory, and dimension theory—published over 1,500 papers with more than 500 collaborators from around the world. He achieved this astonishing output while living more or less out of a suitcase, traveling constantly from one university to another in pursuit of new mathematics. It was not uncommon for him to arrive, unannounced, with the declaration that “My brain is open” and then to plunge into the latest problem with gusto.
Two later developments deserve mention. One was the invention of the electronic computer, whose speed has been advantageously applied to number theoretic questions. As an example, Euler once speculated that at least four fourth powers must be added together for the sum to be a fourth power. But in 1988, using a combination of mathematical insight and computer muscle, the American Noam Elkies discovered that 2,682,4404 + 15,365,6394 + 18,796,7604 = 20,615,6734—a stupendous counterexample that destroyed Euler’s conjecture. (The number on the right contains 30 digits, so there is little wonder that Euler missed it.)
Second, number theory acquired an applied flavour, for it became instrumental in designing encryption schemes widely used in government and business. These rely upon the factorization of gigantic numbers into primes—a factorization that the code’s user knows and the potential code-breaker d