Customer Reviews
A class of its own - By: Simon Pollack, 18 Dec 2008 
I am a bit of a junkie for books on maths, revisiting my degree of 15-20 years ago. The quality varies a lot though & I am very often disappointed. This I supose is not surprising: I want not to be patronised but I also want accessibility, context (historical, personal), & some insight into the underlying beauty of the mathematicsin question. But this book pushes all the right buttons.
The Riemann Hypothesis is really quite advanced - you wouldn't find much in-depth study of itin any compulsory modules of undergraduate courses. But Derbyshire brings it to life. The book is challenging but accessible, & ultimately a very fulfilling read.
I think the key to his success is the interleaving of chapters on the lives of the protagonists with those on the maths leading up to & surrounding the Hypothesis. Because an understanding of the relevant mathematics helps understand the importance of a given mathematician's life, & an understanding of historical context helps bring the maths to life, these chapters are mutually reinforcing. As such the whole is greater than the sum of the parts (I think I might just have found that 1+1>2). And because so many of the great mathematicians contributed to the foundations of number theory & analysis, & many subsequently worked on the Riemann Hypothesis itself, this book kind of doubles as a selective history of modern (from Newton) mathematics.
I can't recommend this book enough. Even for those with no backgroundin maths, but with an enquiring spirit, there is enough here (crucially, without turgidity) to dimly comprehend the profound beauty & true mystery of maths. It makes you believe somehowin the Platonic Ideals & that those blessed with true insight get closer to them than the rest of us. I have always felt that advanced pure mathematics is as worthy an art as painting or sculpture, & the great mathematicians as worthy artists as Van Gogh etc. But because of the inaccessibility of the subject matter to the layman this great art couldn't be widely-enough shared. With more books like Prime Obsession this wrong will be righted.
Challenging, but worth it - By: Tim Danaher, 15 Sep 2008 The great German mathematician, David Hilbert was once asked what question would he ask if could come backin 500 years' time. His response was immidiate:
"Has anyone proved the Riemann Hypothesis?"
Reading this book, you'll understand why Hilbert didn't hesitate. This is by far the most 'mathematical' of the popular books on the RH, & if you are a mathematical numpty like me, you might be discouraged at first glance. Don't be!!! Derbyshire actually does a really good job of walking you through it. It's an extremely rewarding read. I particularly like the way he also wovein the politcal & social upheavals that were taking placein Germany & Europein general at the time that Riemann was formulating his hypothesis.
Interesting - By: GC, 19 Aug 2008 
I enjoyed the first half of the book - which provides a good background of the subject matter. Towards the latter half I grew weary of the author's style of writing & also found all the non-mathematical anecdotes annoying. I think the author's effort to dumb everything down ultimately destroys the point of the book. But this is a good starting point for a layperson who is interestedin the Riemann hypothesis. I yearn for a more mathematical book, though.
A popularisation the focuses on the actual mathematics - By: Matt Westwood, 05 Jan 2008 Most books of this kind don't bother to try to talk about the actual maths, so they waffle on about the mathematicians, which is something like watching interviews of rock stars when you want to be seeing them performing.
This book is an exception - it does its mightiest to actually explain the innards of the conjecture & goes some way towards achieving its aim.
No quibble - this is the best book on its subject that's available at the moment, unless you're going for something more technical.
Do not buy any others - By: Hamptonshirewonder, 12 Apr 2007 I have read this book & one of the other two popularisations about the Riemann hypothesis. Instead of interviewing mathematicians who may be near to solving it or writing around the subject, this book actually works through the mathematics of Riemann's 1859 paper.
It emphasises the centrality of Riemann's other parts of the paper apart from the famous Hypothesis & so helps to explain why some 30 years later that mathematicians were able to prove the Prime Number Theorem, independently of the truth or otherwise of the famous hypothesis: roughly that as numbers get larger the number of primes less than that number tends to about the number divided by its logarithm (base e). The reason is because of the techniques that Riemann inventedin his paper.
Riemann's starting point was to generalise Euler's formula which relates the sum of a reciprocals of natural numbers: 1+1/2+1/3+1/4+... to the product of the inverses of the prime numbers. Derbyshire's explanation is far clearer than others & even I was able to understand it.
This book is precise & clear: one really feels that one has some insight into an astonishing piece of creative mathematical work by the time one has read the book. That alonein my opinion should qualify it as one of the greatest pieces of popular science writing of this or any other decade.
This book needs to be more actively marketed: whatever its faults, the author has made a genuine attempt to really explain a great piece of science technically to a non -technical audience, rather than just waffling around the subject & making us all feel these things are so far above our heads we will never understand themin any way. This courage on the author's part needs to be more widely feted.
I cannot do more than endorse the other reviewers' praise for this classic-to-be.
