Stalking the Riemann Hypothesis: The Quest to Find the Hidden Law of Prime Numbers

In 1859 a German professor named Bernhard Riemann postulated a law capable of describing with an amazing degree of accuracy the baffling occurrence of prime numbers; coming up with its proof has been the holy grail of mathematicians ever since. In Stalking the Riemann Hypothesis, Dan Rockmore, a prominent mathematician in his own right, takes us from Euclid’s pondering of the infinitude of the primes through modern efforts to prove the Riemann hypothesis–efforts that astonishingly connect the primes to the statistics of solitaire, chaos theory, and even the mysteries of quantum mechanics. Along the way, he introduces us to the many brilliant and fascinating thinkers who have contributed to this work, from the most famous mathematician of all time, Carl Friedrich Gauss (Riemann’s teacher), to the intellectual giants David Hilbert and Freeman Dyson.

A lively, comprehensive, and accessible examination of one of the most compelling unsolved problems in mathematics, Stalking the Riemann Hypothesis tells us the full story of the quest to find that elusive solution.

Dan Rockmore is a professor of mathematics and computer science at Darmouth College. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife, son, and golden retriever.


From the Trade Paperback edition.