Number theory (or arithmetic[note 1]) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study

of the integers, sometimes called "The Queen of Mathematics" because of its foundational place in
the discipline.[1] Number theorists study prime numbers as well as the properties of objects made out
of integers (e.g., rational numbers) or defined as generalizations of the integers (e.g., algebraic
integers).
Integers can be considered either in themselves or as solutions to equations (Diophantine
geometry). Questions in number theory are often best understood through the study
of analytical objects (e.g., the Riemann zeta function) that encode properties of the integers, primes
or other number-theoretic objects in some fashion (analytic number theory). One may also study real
numbers in relation to rational numbers, e.g., as approximated by the latter (Diophantine
approximation).
The older term for number theory is arithmetic. By the early twentieth century, it had been
superseded by "number theory".[note 2] (The word "arithmetic" is used by the general public to mean
"elementary calculations"; it has also acquired other meanings in mathematical logic, as in Peano
arithmetic, and computer science, as in floating point arithmetic.) The use of the
term arithmetic for number theoryregained some ground in the second half of the 20th century,
arguably in part due to French influence.[note 3] In particular, arithmetical is preferred as an adjective
to number-theoretic.
Contents
[hide]

1 History
o 1.1 Origins
1.1.1 Dawn of arithmetic
1.1.2 Classical Greece and the early Hellenistic period
1.1.3 Diophantus
1.1.4 Indian school: ryabhaa, Brahmagupta, Bhskara
1.1.5 Arithmetic in the Islamic golden age
2 Western Europe in the Middle Ages
o 2.1 Early modern number theory
2.1.1 Fermat
2.1.2 Euler
2.1.3 Lagrange, Legendre and Gauss
o 2.2 Maturity and division into subfields
3 Main subdivisions
o 3.1 Elementary tools
o 3.2 Analytic number theory
o 3.3 Algebraic number theory
o 3.4 Diophantine geometry
4 Recent approaches and subfields
o 4.1 Probabilistic number theory
o 4.2 Arithmetic combinatorics

o 4.3 Computations in number theory

5 Applications
6 Literature
7 See also
8 Notes
9 References
10 Sources
11 External links

History[edit]
Origins[edit]
Dawn of arithmetic[edit]
The first historical find of an arithmetical nature is a fragment of a table: the broken clay
tablet Plimpton 322 (Larsa, Mesopotamia, ca. 1800 BCE) contains a list of "Pythagorean triples", i.e.,
integers

such that

. The triples are too many and too large to have been obtained

by brute force. The heading over the first column reads: "Thetakiltum of the diagonal which has been
subtracted such that the width..."[2]

The Plimpton 322 tablet

The table's layout suggests[3] that it was constructed by means of what amounts, in modern
language, to the identity

which is implicit in routine Old Babylonian exercises.[4] If some other method was used,[5] the triples
were first constructed and then reordered by

, presumably for actual use as a "table", i.e., with a

view to applications.
It is not known what these applications may have been, or whether there could have been
any; Babylonian astronomy, for example, truly flowered only later. It has been suggested instead that
the table was a source of numerical examples for school problems.[6][note 4]
While Babylonian number theoryor what survives of Babylonian mathematics that can be called
thusconsists of this single, striking fragment, Babylonian algebra (in the secondary-school sense

of "algebra") was exceptionally well developed.[7] Late Neoplatonic sources[8] state

that Pythagoras learned mathematics from the Babylonians. Much earlier sources[9] state
that Thales and Pythagoras traveled and studied in Egypt.
Euclid IX 2134 is very probably Pythagorean;[10] it is very simple material ("odd times even is
even", "if an odd number measures [= divides] an even number, then it also measures [= divides]
half of it"), but it is all that is needed to prove that

is irrational.[11] Pythagorean mystics gave great

importance to the odd and the even.[12] The discovery that

[13]

Pythagoreans (pre-Theodorus).

is irrational is credited to the early

By revealing (in modern terms) that numbers could be irrational,

this discovery seems to have provoked the first foundational crisis in mathematical history; its proof
or its divulgation are sometimes credited to Hippasus, who was expelled or split from the
Pythagorean sect.[14] It is only here that we can start to speak of a clear, conscious division
between numbers (integers and the rationalsthe subjects of arithmetic) and lengths (real numbers,
whether rational or not).
The Pythagorean tradition spoke also of so-called polygonal or figurate numbers.[15] While square
numbers, cubic numbers, etc., are seen now as more natural than triangular numbers, square
numbers, pentagonal numbers, etc., the study of the sums of triangular and pentagonal numbers
would prove fruitful in the early modern period (17th to early 19th century).
We know of no clearly arithmetical material in ancient Egyptian or Vedic sources, though there is
some algebra in both. The Chinese remainder theorem appears as an exercise[16] in Sun Zi's Suan
Ching (also known as The Mathematical Classic of Sun Zi (3rd, 4th or 5th century CE.)[17] (There is
one important step glossed over in Sun Zi's solution:[note 5] it is the problem that was later solved
by ryabhaa's kuaka see below.)
There is also some numerical mysticism in Chinese mathematics,[note 6] but, unlike that of the
Pythagoreans, it seems to have led nowhere. Like the Pythagoreans' perfect numbers, magic
squares have passed from superstition into recreation.
Classical Greece and the early Hellenistic period[edit]
Aside from a few fragments, the mathematics of Classical Greece is known to us either through the
reports of contemporary non-mathematicians or through mathematical works from the early
Hellenistic period.[18] In the case of number theory, this means, by and large, Plato and Euclid,
respectively.
Plato had a keen interest in mathematics, and distinguished clearly between arithmetic and
calculation. (By arithmetic he meant, in part, theorising on number, rather than
whatarithmetic or number theory have come to mean.) It is through one of Plato's dialogues
namely, Theaetetus that we know that Theodorus had proven that

are

irrational. Theaetetus was, like Plato, a disciple of Theodorus's; he worked on distinguishing different

kinds of incommensurables, and was thus arguably a pioneer in the study ofnumber systems. (Book
X of Euclid's Elements is described by Pappus as being largely based on Theaetetus's work.)
Euclid devoted part of his Elements to prime numbers and divisibility, topics that belong
unambiguously to number theory and are basic to it (Books VII to IX of Euclid's Elements). In
particular, he gave an algorithm for computing the greatest common divisor of two numbers
(the Euclidean algorithm; Elements, Prop. VII.2) and the first known proof of theinfinitude of
primes (Elements, Prop. IX.20).
In 1773, Lessing published an epigram he had found in a manuscript during his work as a librarian; it
claimed to be a letter sent by Archimedes to Eratosthenes.[19][20] The epigram proposed what has
become known as Archimedes' cattle problem; its solution (absent from the manuscript) requires
solving an indeterminate quadratic equation (which reduces to what would later be misnamed Pell's
equation). As far as we know, such equations were first successfully treated by the Indian school. It
is not known whether Archimedes himself had a method of solution.
Diophantus[edit]

Title page of the 1621 edition of Diophantus'Arithmetica, translated intoLatin by Claude Gaspard Bachet de Mziriac.

Very little is known about Diophantus of Alexandria; he probably lived in the third century CE, that is,
about five hundred years after Euclid. Six out of the thirteen books of
Diophantus's Arithmetica survive in the original Greek; four more books survive in an Arabic
translation. The Arithmetica is a collection of worked-out problems where the task is invariably to find
rational solutions to a system of polynomial equations, usually of the form

or

Thus, nowadays, we speak of Diophantine equations when we speak of polynomial equations to

which rational or integer solutions must be found.
One may say that Diophantus was studying rational points i.e., points whose coordinates are
rational on curves and algebraic varieties; however, unlike the Greeks of the Classical period,

who did what we would now call basic algebra in geometrical terms, Diophantus did what we would
now call basic algebraic geometry in purely algebraic terms. In modern language, what Diophantus
did was to find rational parametrizations of varieties; that is, given an equation of the form
(say)
all values of

, his aim was to find (in essence) three rational functions

and , setting

for

such that, for

gives a solution to

Diophantus also studied the equations of some non-rational curves, for which no rational
parametrisation is possible. He managed to find some rational points on these curves (elliptic
curves, as it happens, in what seems to be their first known occurrence) by means of what amounts
to a tangent construction: translated into coordinate geometry (which did not exist in Diophantus's
time), his method would be visualised as drawing a tangent to a curve at a known rational point, and
then finding the other point of intersection of the tangent with the curve; that other point is a new
rational point. (Diophantus also resorted to what could be called a special case of a secant
construction.)
While Diophantus was concerned largely with rational solutions, he assumed some results on
integer numbers, in particular that every integer is the sum of four squares (though he never stated
as much explicitly).
Indian school: ryabhaa, Brahmagupta, Bhskara[edit]
While Greek astronomy probably influenced Indian learning, to the point of introducing
trigonometry,[21] it seems to be the case that Indian mathematics is otherwise an indigenous
tradition;[22] in particular, there is no evidence that Euclid's Elements reached India before the 18th
century.[23]
ryabhaa (476550 CE) showed that pairs of simultaneous congruences
,

could be solved by a method he called kuaka, or pulveriser;[24]this is a

procedure close to (a generalisation of) the Euclidean algorithm, which was probably discovered
independently in India.[25] ryabhaa seems to have had in mind applications to astronomical
calculations.[21]
Brahmagupta (628 CE) started the systematic study of indefinite quadratic equationsin particular,
the misnamed Pell equation, in which Archimedes may have first been interested, and which did not
start to be solved in the West until the time of Fermat and Euler. Later Sanskrit authors would follow,
using Brahmagupta's technical terminology. A general procedure (the chakravala, or "cyclic
method") for solving Pell's equation was finally found by Jayadeva (cited in the eleventh century; his
work is otherwise lost); the earliest surviving exposition appears in Bhskara II's Bja-gaita (twelfth
century).[26]
Unfortunately, Indian mathematics remained largely unknown in the West until the late eighteenth
century;[27] Brahmagupta and Bhskara's work was translated into English in 1817 by Henry
Colebrooke.[28]

Arithmetic in the Islamic golden age[edit]

Al-Haytham seen by the West: frontispice ofSelenographia, showing Alhasen [sic] representing knowledge through
reason, and Galileo representing knowledge through the senses.

In the early ninth century, the caliph Al-Ma'mun ordered translations of many Greek mathematical
works and at least one Sanskrit work (theSindhind, which may [29] or may
not[30] be Brahmagupta's Brhmasphuasiddhnta). Diophantus's main work, the Arithmetica, was
translated into Arabic by Qusta ibn Luqa (820912). Part of the treatise al-Fakhri (by al-Karaj, 953
ca. 1029) builds on it to some extent. According to Rashed Roshdi, Al-Karaj's contemporary Ibn alHaytham knew[31] what would later be called Wilson's theorem.

Western Europe in the Middle Ages[edit]

Other than a treatise on squares in arithmetic progression by Fibonacci who lived and studied in
north Africa and Constantinople during his formative years, ca. 11751200 no number theory to
speak of was done in western Europe during the Middle Ages. Matters started to change in Europe
in the late Renaissance, thanks to a renewed study of the works of Greek antiquity. A catalyst was
the textual emendation and translation into Latin of Diophantus's Arithmetica (Bachet, 1621,
following a first attempt by Xylander, 1575).

Early modern number theory[edit]

Fermat[edit]

Pierre de Fermat

Pierre de Fermat (16011665) never published his writings; in particular, his work on number theory
is contained almost entirely in letters to mathematicians and in private marginal notes.[32] He wrote
down nearly no proofs in number theory; he had no models in the area.[33] He did make repeated use
of mathematical induction, introducing the method of infinite descent.
One of Fermat's first interests was perfect numbers (which appear in Euclid, Elements IX)
and amicable numbers;[note 7] this led him to work on integer divisors, which were from the beginning
among the subjects of the correspondence (1636 onwards) that put him in touch with the
mathematical community of the day.[34] He had already studied Bachet's edition of Diophantus
carefully;[35] by 1643, his interests had shifted largely to Diophantine problems and sums of
squares[36] (also treated by Diophantus).
Fermat's achievements in arithmetic include:

Fermat's little theorem (1640),[37] stating that, if a is not divisible by a prime p,

then

[note 8]

If a and b are coprime, then

[38]

4;

is not divisible by any prime congruent to 1 modulo

and Every prime congruent to 1 modulo 4 can be written in the form

.[39] These two

statements also date from 1640; in 1659, Fermat stated to Huygens that he had proven the latter
statement by the method of infinite descent.[40] Fermat and Frenicle also did some work (some of
it erroneous or non-rigorous)[41] on other quadratic forms.

Fermat posed the problem of solving

as a challenge to English mathematicians

(1657). The problem was solved in a few months by Wallis and Brouncker.[42]Fermat considered
their solution valid, but pointed out they had provided an algorithm without a proof (as had

Jayadeva and Bhaskara, though Fermat would never know this.) He states that a proof can be
found by descent.

Fermat developed methods for (doing what in our terms amounts to) finding points on curves
of genus 0 and 1. As in Diophantus, there are many special procedures and what amounts to a
tangent construction, but no use of a secant construction.[43]

Fermat states and proves (by descent) in the appendix to Observations on Diophantus (Obs.
XLV)[44] that

has no non-trivial solutions in the integers. Fermat also mentioned to his

correspondents that
[45]

descent.

has no non-trivial solutions, and that this could be proven by

The first known proof is due to Euler (1753; indeed by descent).[46]

Fermat's claim ("Fermat's last theorem") to have shown there are no solutions to
all

for

(a fact the only known proofs of which were completely beyond his methods) appears only in

his annotations on the margin of his copy of Diophantus; he never claimed this to others[47] and thus
would have had no need to retract it if he found any mistake in his supposed proof.
Euler[edit]

Leonhard Euler

The interest of Leonhard Euler (17071783) in number theory was first spurred in 1729, when a
friend of his, the amateur[note 9] Goldbach, pointed him towards some of Fermat's work on the
subject.[48][49] This has been called the "rebirth" of modern number theory,[35] after Fermat's relative
lack of success in getting his contemporaries' attention for the subject.[50] Euler's work on number
theory includes the following:[51]

Proofs for Fermat's statements. This includes Fermat's little theorem (generalised by Euler to
non-prime moduli); the fact that

if and only if

; initial work towards a proof

that every integer is the sum of four squares (the first complete proof is by Joseph-Louis
Lagrange (1770), soon improved by Euler himself[52]); the lack of non-zero integer solutions
to

(implying the case n=4 of Fermat's last theorem, the case n=3 of which Euler also

proved by a related method).

Pell's equation, first misnamed by Euler.[53] He wrote on the link between continued fractions and
Pell's equation.[54]

First steps towards analytic number theory. In his work of sums of four
squares, partitions, pentagonal numbers, and the distribution of prime numbers, Euler pioneered
the use of what can be seen as analysis (in particular, infinite series) in number theory. Since he
lived before the development of complex analysis, most of his work is restricted to the formal
manipulation of power series. He did, however, do some very notable (though not fully rigorous)
early work on what would later be called the Riemann zeta function.[55]

Quadratic forms. Following Fermat's lead, Euler did further research on the question of which
primes can be expressed in the form

, some of it prefiguring quadratic reciprocity.[56] [57][58]

Diophantine equations. Euler worked on some Diophantine equations of genus 0 and 1.[59][60] In
particular, he studied Diophantus's work; he tried to systematise it, but the time was not yet ripe
for such an endeavour algebraic geometry was still in its infancy.[61] He did notice there was a
connection between Diophantine problems and elliptic integrals,[61] whose study he had himself
initiated.

Lagrange, Legendre and Gauss[edit]

Carl Friedrich Gauss'sDisquisitiones Arithmeticae, first edition

Joseph-Louis Lagrange (17361813) was the first to give full proofs of some of Fermat's and Euler's
work and observations - for instance, the four-square theorem and the basic theory of the misnamed
"Pell's equation" (for which an algorithmic solution was found by Fermat and his contemporaries, and
also by Jayadeva and Bhaskara II before them.) He also studied quadratic forms in full generality (as
opposed to

) defining their equivalence relation, showing how to put them in reduced

form, etc.
Adrien-Marie Legendre (17521833) was the first to state the law of quadratic reciprocity. He also
conjectured what amounts to the prime number theorem and Dirichlet's theorem on arithmetic
progressions. He gave a full treatment of the equation

[62]

and worked on quadratic

forms along the lines later developed fully by Gauss.[63] In his old age, he was the first to prove
"Fermat's last theorem" for

(completing work by Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, and

crediting both him and Sophie Germain).[64]

Carl Friedrich Gauss

In his Disquisitiones Arithmeticae (1798), Carl Friedrich Gauss (17771855) proved the law
of quadratic reciprocity and developed the theory of quadratic forms (in particular, defining their
composition). He also introduced some basic notation (congruences) and devoted a section to
computational matters, including primality tests.[65] The last section of the Disquisitiones established a
link between roots of unity and number theory:
The theory of the division of the circle...which is treated in sec. 7 does not belong by itself to
arithmetic, but its principles can only be drawn from higher arithmetic.[66]
In this way, Gauss arguably made a first foray towards both variste Galois's work and algebraic
number theory.

Maturity and division into subfields[edit]

Ernst Kummer

Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet

Starting early in the nineteenth century, the following developments gradually took place:

The rise to self-consciousness of number theory (or higher arithmetic) as a field of study.[67]

The development of much of modern mathematics necessary for basic modern number
theory: complex analysis,group theory, Galois theoryaccompanied by greater rigor in analysis
and abstraction in algebra.

The rough subdivision of number theory into its modern subfieldsin

particular, analytic and algebraic number theory.

Algebraic number theory may be said to start with the study of reciprocity and cyclotomy, but truly
came into its own with the development of abstract algebra and early ideal theory
and valuation theory; see below. A conventional starting point for analytic number theory
is Dirichlet's theorem on arithmetic progressions (1837),[68][69] whose proof introduced L-functions and
involved some asymptotic analysis and a limiting process on a real variable.[70] The first use of
analytic ideas in number theory actually goes back to Euler (1730s),[71] [72] who used formal power
series and non-rigorous (or implicit) limiting arguments. The use of complex analysis in number
theory comes later: the work ofBernhard Riemann (1859) on the zeta function is the canonical
starting point;[73] Jacobi's four-square theorem (1839), which predates it, belongs to an initially
different strand that has by now taken a leading role in analytic number theory (modular forms).[74]
The history of each subfield is briefly addressed in its own section below; see the main article of
each subfield for fuller treatments. Many of the most interesting questions in each area remain open
and are being actively worked on.

Main subdivisions[edit]
Elementary tools[edit]
The term elementary generally denotes a method that does not use complex analysis. For example,
the prime number theorem was first proven using complex analysis in 1896, but an elementary proof
was found only in 1949 by Erds and Selberg.[75] The term is somewhat ambiguous: for example,

proofs based on complex Tauberian theorems (e.g.WienerIkehara) are often seen as quite
enlightening but not elementary, in spite of using Fourier analysis, rather than complex analysis as
such. Here as elsewhere, anelementary proof may be longer and more difficult for most readers than
a non-elementary one.
Number theory has the reputation of being a field many of whose results can be stated to the
layperson. At the same time, the proofs of these results are not particularly accessible, in part
because the range of tools they use is, if anything, unusually broad within mathematics.[76]

Analytic number theory[edit]

Main article: Analytic number theory

Riemann zeta function (s) in thecomplex plane. The color of a point sgives the value of (s): dark colors denote
values close to zero and hue gives the value's argument.

The action of the modular group on the upper half plane. The region in grey is the standard fundamental domain.

Analytic number theory may be defined

in terms of its tools, as the study of the integers by means of tools from real and complex
analysis;[68] or

in terms of its concerns, as the study within number theory of estimates on size and density, as
opposed to identities.[77]

Some subjects generally considered to be part of analytic number theory, e.g., sieve theory,[note 10] are
better covered by the second rather than the first definition: some of sieve theory, for instance, uses
little analysis,[note 11] yet it does belong to analytic number theory.

The following are examples of problems in analytic number theory: the prime number theorem,
the Goldbach conjecture (or the twin prime conjecture, or the HardyLittlewood conjectures),
the Waring problem and the Riemann Hypothesis. Some of the most important tools of analytic
number theory are the circle method, sieve methods and L-functions (or, rather, the study of their
properties). The theory ofmodular forms (and, more generally, automorphic forms) also occupies an
increasingly central place in the toolbox of analytic number theory.[78]
One may ask analytic questions about algebraic numbers, and use analytic means to answer such
questions; it is thus that algebraic and analytic number theory intersect. For example, one may
define prime ideals (generalizations of prime numbers living in the field of algebraic numbers) and
ask how many prime ideals there are up to a certain size. This question can be answered by means
of an examination of Dedekind zeta functions, which are generalizations of the Riemann zeta
function, a key analytic object at the roots of the subject.[79] This is an example of a general
procedure in analytic number theory: deriving information about the distribution of a sequence (here,
prime ideals or prime numbers) from the analytic behavior of an appropriately constructed complexvalued function.[80]

Algebraic number theory[edit]

Main article: Algebraic number theory
An algebraic number is any complex number that is a solution to some polynomial
equation
solution

with rational coefficients; for example, every

of

(say) is an algebraic number. Fields of algebraic numbers are

also called algebraic number fields, or shortly number fields. Algebraic number theory studies
algebraic number fields.[81] Thus, analytic and algebraic number theory can and do overlap: the
former is defined by its methods, the latter by its objects of study.
It could be argued that the simplest kind of number fields (viz., quadratic fields) were already studied
by Gauss, as the discussion of quadratic forms in Disquisitiones arithmeticae can be restated in
terms of ideals and norms in quadratic fields. (A quadratic field consists of all numbers of the
form

, where and

are rational numbers and

is a fixed rational number whose square

root is not rational.) For that matter, the 11th-century chakravala method amountsin modern
termsto an algorithm for finding the units of a real quadratic number field. However,
neither Bhskara nor Gauss knew of number fields as such.
The grounds of the subject as we know it were set in the late nineteenth century, when ideal
numbers, the theory of ideals and valuation theory were developed; these are three complementary
ways of dealing with the lack of unique factorisation in algebraic number fields. (For example, in the
field generated by the rationals and
as

and

, the number
; all of , ,

can be factorised both

and

are irreducible, and thus, in a

nave sense, analogous to primes among the integers.) The initial impetus for the development of

ideal numbers (by Kummer) seems to have come from the study of higher reciprocity laws,[82]i.e.,
generalisations of quadratic reciprocity.
Number fields are often studied as extensions of smaller number fields: a field L is said to be
an extension of a field K if L contains K. (For example, the complex numbers C are an extension of
the reals R, and the reals R are an extension of the rationals Q.) Classifying the possible extensions
of a given number field is a difficult and partially open problem. Abelian extensionsthat is,
extensions L of K such that the Galois group[note 12] Gal(L/K) of L over K is an abelian groupare
relatively well understood. Their classification was the object of the programme of class field theory,
which was initiated in the late 19th century (partly by Kronecker and Eisenstein) and carried out
largely in 19001950.
An example of an active area of research in algebraic number theory is Iwasawa theory.
The Langlands program, one of the main current large-scale research plans in mathematics, is
sometimes described as an attempt to generalise class field theory to non-abelian extensions of
number fields.

Diophantine geometry[edit]
Main articles: Diophantine geometry and Glossary of arithmetic and Diophantine geometry
The central problem of Diophantine geometry is to determine when a Diophantine equation has
solutions, and if it does, how many. The approach taken is to think of the solutions of an equation as
a geometric object.
For example, an equation in two variables defines a curve in the plane. More generally, an equation,
or system of equations, in two or more variables defines a curve, a surfaceor some other such object
in n-dimensional space. In Diophantine geometry, one asks whether there are any rational
points (points all of whose coordinates are rationals) orintegral points (points all of whose
coordinates are integers) on the curve or surface. If there are any such points, the next step is to ask
how many there are and how they are distributed. A basic question in this direction is: are there
finitely or infinitely many rational points on a given curve (or surface)? What about integer points?
An example here may be helpful. Consider the Pythagorean equation
to study its rational solutions, i.e., its solutions
same as asking for all integer solutions to
us a solution

such that x and y are both rational. This is the

; any solution to the latter equation gives

to the former. It is also the same as asking for all points with

rational coordinates on the curve described by

radius 1 around the origin.)

; we would like

. (This curve happens to be a circle of

Two examples of an elliptic curve, i.e., a curve of genus 1 having at least one rational point. (Either graph can be
seen as a slice of a torus in four-dimensional space.)

The rephrasing of questions on equations in terms of points on curves turns out to be felicitous. The
finiteness or not of the number of rational or integer points on an algebraic curvethat is, rational or
integer solutions to an equation

, where

is a polynomial in two variablesturns out

to depend crucially on the genus of the curve. The genus can be defined as follows:[note 13] allow the
variables in

to be complex numbers; then

defines a 2-dimensional

surface in (projective) 4-dimensional space (since two complex variables can be decomposed into
four real variables, i.e., four dimensions). Count the number of (doughnut) holes in the surface; call
this number the genus of

. Other geometrical notions turn out to be just as crucial.

There is also the closely linked area of Diophantine approximations: given a number

, how well can

it be approximated by rationals? (We are looking for approximations that are good relative to the
amount of space that it takes to write the rational: call
approximation to

if

algebraic number. If

, where

(with

) a good

is large.) This question is of special interest if

is an

cannot be well approximated, then some equations do not have integer or

rational solutions. Moreover, several concepts (especially that of height) turn out to be crucial both in
Diophantine geometry and in the study of Diophantine approximations. This question is also of
special interest in transcendence theory: if a number can be better approximated than any algebraic
number, then it is a transcendental number. It is by this argument that and e have been shown to
be transcendental.
Diophantine geometry should not be confused with the geometry of numbers, which is a collection of
graphical methods for answering certain questions in algebraic number theory. Arithmetic geometry,
on the other hand, is a contemporary term for much the same domain as that covered by the
term Diophantine geometry. The term arithmetic geometry is arguably used most often when one
wishes to emphasise the connections to modern algebraic geometry (as in, for instance, Faltings'
theorem) rather than to techniques in Diophantine approximations.

Recent approaches and subfields[edit]

The areas below date as such from no earlier than the mid-twentieth century, even if they are based
on older material. For example, as is explained below, the matter of algorithms in number theory is
very old, in some sense older than the concept of proof; at the same time, the modern study
of computability dates only from the 1930s and 1940s, and computational complexity theory from the
1970s.

Probabilistic number theory[edit]

Main article: Probabilistic number theory
Take a number at random between one and a million. How likely is it to be prime? This is just
another way of asking how many primes there are between one and a million. Further: how many
prime divisors will it have, on average? How many divisors will it have altogether, and with what
likelihood? What is the probability that it have many more or many fewer divisors or prime divisors
than the average?
Much of probabilistic number theory can be seen as an important special case of the study of
variables that are almost, but not quite, mutually independent. For example, the event that a random
integer between one and a million be divisible by two and the event that it be divisible by three are
almost independent, but not quite.
It is sometimes said that probabilistic combinatorics uses the fact that whatever happens with
probability greater than

must happen sometimes; one may say with equal justice that many

applications of probabilistic number theory hinge on the fact that whatever is unusual must be rare. If
certain algebraic objects (say, rational or integer solutions to certain equations) can be shown to be
in the tail of certain sensibly defined distributions, it follows that there must be few of them; this is a
very concrete non-probabilistic statement following from a probabilistic one.
At times, a non-rigorous, probabilistic approach leads to a number of heuristic algorithms and open
problems, notably Cramr's conjecture.

Arithmetic combinatorics[edit]
Main articles: Arithmetic combinatorics and Additive number theory
Let A be a set of N integers. Consider the set A + A = { m + n | m, n A } consisting of all sums of
two elements of A. Is A + A much larger than A? Barely larger? If A + A is barely larger than A,
must A have plenty of arithmetic structure, for example, does A resemble an arithmetic progression?
If we begin from a fairly "thick" infinite set
progression: ,

large integers as sums of elements of

, does it contain many elements in arithmetic

,

, say? Should it be possible to write

These questions are characteristic of arithmetic combinatorics. This is a presently coalescing field; it
subsumes additive number theory (which concerns itself with certain very specific sets

of

arithmetic significance, such as the primes or the squares) and, arguably, some of the geometry of

numbers, together with some rapidly developing new material. Its focus on issues of growth and
distribution accounts in part for its developing links with ergodic theory, finite group theory, model
theory, and other fields. The termadditive combinatorics is also used; however, the sets

being

studied need not be sets of integers, but rather subsets of non-commutative groups, for which the
multiplication symbol, not the addition symbol, is traditionally used; they can also be subsets of rings,
in which case the growth of

and

may be compared.

Computations in number theory[edit]

Main article: Computational number theory
While the word algorithm goes back only to certain readers of al-Khwrizm, careful descriptions of
methods of solution are older than proofs: such methods (that is, algorithms) are as old as any
recognisable mathematicsancient Egyptian, Babylonian, Vedic, Chinesewhereas proofs
appeared only with the Greeks of the classical period. An interesting early case is that of what we
now call the Euclidean algorithm. In its basic form (namely, as an algorithm for computing
the greatest common divisor) it appears as Proposition 2 of Book VII in Elements, together with a
proof of correctness. However, in the form that is often used in number theory (namely, as an
algorithm for finding integer solutions to an equation

, or, what is the same, for finding the

quantities whose existence is assured by the Chinese remainder theorem) it first appears in the
works ofryabhaa (5th6th century CE) as an algorithm called kuaka ("pulveriser"), without a proof
of correctness.
There are two main questions: "can we compute this?" and "can we compute it rapidly?". Anybody
can test whether a number is prime or, if it is not, split it into prime factors; doing so rapidly is
another matter. We now know fast algorithms for testing primality, but, in spite of much work (both
theoretical and practical), no truly fast algorithm for factoring.
The difficulty of a computation can be useful: modern protocols for encrypting messages (e.g., RSA)
depend on functions that are known to all, but whose inverses (a) are known only to a chosen few,
and (b) would take one too long a time to figure out on one's own. For example, these functions can
be such that their inverses can be computed only if certain large integers are factorized. While many
difficult computational problems outside number theory are known, most working encryption
protocols nowadays are based on the difficulty of a few number-theoretical problems.
On a different note some things may not be computable at all; in fact, this can be proven in some
instances. For instance, in 1970, it was proven, as a solution to Hilbert's 10th problem, that there is
no Turing machine which can solve all Diophantine equations.[83] In particular, this means that, given
a computably enumerable set of axioms, there are Diophantine equations for which there is no proof,
starting from the axioms, of whether the set of equations has or does not have integer solutions. (We
would necessarily be speaking of Diophantine equations for which there are no integer solutions,
since, given a Diophantine equation with at least one solution, the solution itself provides a proof of

the fact that a solution exists. We cannot prove, of course, that a particular Diophantine equation is
of this kind, since this would imply that it has no solutions.)