I came to this text through both Du Sautoy's 'Music of the Primes' and the Clay Mathematics Institute online videos/publications regarding both the Riemann Hypothesis and the Primes. If you haven't seen or read either, I'd recommend both in addition to Rockmore's book. Rockmore's book is elegant and more sharply focused towards the Riemann hypothesis delineating a clear, cogent, incremental...
more I came to this text through both Du Sautoy's 'Music of the Primes' and the Clay Mathematics Institute online videos/publications regarding both the Riemann Hypothesis and the Primes. If you haven't seen or read either, I'd recommend both in addition to Rockmore's book. Rockmore's book is elegant and more sharply focused towards the Riemann hypothesis delineating a clear, cogent, incremental argument historically up to the delination of methodologies regarding the Riemann hypothesis - discovery, history and explanation of wider implications. Its definitely not an easy set of concepts and tools to get your head around, particularly the Zeta Function and 'the zeros' but a fascinating story and I'm very glad for this text. My proof level preference currently leans towards Euclid or the Sieve of Erastothenes but I aso have been fascinated with grapppling with some of the higher mathematics surrounding Riemann lately and Rockmore does clearly delineate the steps needed to approach Riemann's zeta function and the zeros through an elegant style and build. As an aside, if you haven't seen any of the online material, I'd also definitely recommend watching any of the Clay Related Prime Conjecture Videos http://www.claymath.org/video/ (du Sautoy, Green, Agrawal) or the earlier U of Texas Millenium Prize Jeffery Vaaler Lecture online as accompaniment to this text. You can see I currently have a bit of a prime obsesssion myself - similarly, there is a widely circulating Youtube Video by Terrence Tao (Fields Medalist, UCLA) on Primes where he also covers the Riemann hypothesis along with an earlier more general BBC historical introduction "Music of the Primes" documentary online by Du Sautoy. Together, these can provide a good beginning to getting your head around some of the prime's surrounding magic and history for civilization. Lets hope the proof for Riemann is an elegant one if this occurs in the 21st century. My guess, intuition or perhaps preference also has sympathies with Freeman Dyson and Montgomery: eigenvalues and energy levels - those wider physical connections spelled out would be fascinating. Now hopefully that's putting a smile on the face of a few out there. Others, dive in - a fascinating story of the atomic elements of math awaits!
hide