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Solving the Pell Equation

  • Textbook
  • © 2009

Overview

  • Describes modern (and surprising) applications to cryptography
  • Includes the most recent advances, with a deeper approach than any other book
  • Hugh Williams is Canada’s most famous computational number theorist who has published close to 200 articles in top journals
  • Michael Jacobson is the known expert on subexponential methods, and a former student of Hugh Williams
  • Both authors are known as outstanding expositors
  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Part of the book series: CMS Books in Mathematics (CMSBM)

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Table of contents (17 chapters)

Keywords

About this book

Pell’s Equation is a very simple Diophantine equation that has been known to mathematicians for over 2000 years. Even today research involving this equation continues to be very active, as can be seen by the publication of at least 150 articles related to this equation over the past decade. However, very few modern books have been published on Pell’s Equation, and this will be the first to give a historical development of the equation, as well as to develop the necessary tools for solving the equation.

The authors provide a friendly introduction for advanced undergraduates to the delights of algebraic number theory via Pell’s Equation. The only prerequisites are a basic knowledge of elementary number theory and abstract algebra. There are also numerous references and notes for those who wish to follow up on various topics.

Reviews

From the reviews:

"‘Solving the Pell Equation’ is a … monograph that offers encyclopedic in-depth coverage of its topic. … The book is very well-written and filled with many interesting asides. … As one of the book’s stated goals is to provide ‘a relatively gentle introduction for senior undergraduates,’ a much larger set of examples … increase the number of students at every level who could profitably read this text. … I highly recommend the book to anyone with an interest in Pell’s equation and its modern study." (Thomas Hagedorn, The Mathematical Association of America, July, 2009)

"This new book on the Pell equation, eagerly anticipated by the mathematical community and written by two active contributers to the field of computational number theory in general and to Pell’s equation in particular, exposes the ongoing interaction between modern computational number theory and practice in a way that is pleasant to read and to study, and that is readily accessible to conscientious undergraduate students. … this book is highly recommended." (Robert Juricevic, Mathematical Reviews, Issue 2009 i)

“Pell’s equation is best known for the misattribution by Euler of a method of solution to John Pell. … This work will be valuable for a comprehensive mathematics library to give strong mathematics students a motivated, deep introduction to advanced number theory. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates.” (J. McCleary, Choice, Vol. 47 (5), January, 2010)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada

    Michael J. Jacobson

  • Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada

    Hugh C. Williams

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Solving the Pell Equation

  • Authors: Michael J. Jacobson, Hugh C. Williams

  • Series Title: CMS Books in Mathematics

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-84923-2

  • Publisher: Springer New York, NY

  • eBook Packages: Mathematics and Statistics, Mathematics and Statistics (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer-Verlag New York 2009

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-387-84922-5Published: 02 December 2008

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-1-4419-2747-7Published: 06 December 2010

  • eBook ISBN: 978-0-387-84923-2Published: 04 December 2008

  • Series ISSN: 1613-5237

  • Series E-ISSN: 2197-4152

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XX, 495

  • Topics: Number Theory, Ecotoxicology

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