Oxford University Press will be publishing my latest book, An Introduction to the Theory of Numbers and Zombies. This is a revised edition of the classic text of Hardy and Wright, modified to include new results in algebraic number theory and zombiosis. I am particularly proud of the new chapter that discusses Wiles' proof of Fermat's last theorem, which has a short section mentioning how Wiles was able to defend himself from a zombified Ken Ribet using the Tate module and a meat cleaver.
This is just one of a series of new editions of classic mathematical books that have been updated for the 21st century. I am really looking forward to the updated version of Constance's Reid's book, entitled David Hilbert: Vampire Slayer.
(Hat tip: A. L. and A. S. for the graphic.)
5 comments:
Excellent! Congrats on the contract.
Ah, David Hilbert! An excellent vampire slayer.
He was able to stalk many a clever vampire to its domain and drive a syzygy through its kernel.
I should like to see someone write the book Pride and Prejudice and the Prime Number Theorem, wherein Elizabeth Bennet is wooed by Mr. Darcy while she also works on a proof of the Riemann hypothesis. It could begin: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that the number of primes less than or equal to x grows asymptotically like x/log x."
Here's one of my favorite quotes. (I think this one's real. I found it in an MAA newsletter.)
From "The Handbook of Hymen," by O. Henry
"Let us sit on this log at the roadside," says I, "and forget the inhumanity and ribaldry of the poets. It is in the glorious columns of ascertained facts and legalized measures that beauty is to be found. In this very log we sit upon, Mrs. Sampson," says I, "is statistics more wonderful than any poem. The rings show it was sixty years old. At the depth of two thousand feet it would become coal in three thousand years. The deepest coal mine in the world is at Killingworth, near Newcastle. A box four feet long, three feet wide, and two feet eight inches deep will hold one ton of coal. If an artery is cut, compress it above the wound. A man's leg contains thirty bones. The Tower of London was burned in 1841."
"Go on, Mr. Pratt," says Mrs. Sampson. "Them ideas is so original and soothing. I think statistics are just as lovely as they can be."
Who knew that philosophical zombies had something to do with number theory?
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