Number theory facts for kids

Number theory is a part of mathematics. It explains what some types of numbers are, what properties they have, and ways that they can be useful.

Topics in number theory are:

• Prime numbers
• Factorization
• Matrix

Important theorems in number theory are:

• Chinese remainder theorem
• Fundamental theorem of arithmetic
• Fermat's last theorem
• Fermat's little theorem

Applications

A well-known application of number theory is encrypted messaging (encryption). Data compression also makes use of the field.

• Vinogradov, I.M. (2003) [1954]. Elements of Number Theory (reprint o 1954 ed.). Mineola, NY: Dover Publications.

Images for kids

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  The distribution of prime numbers is a central point of study in number theory. This Ulam spiral serves to illustrate it, hinting, in particular, at the conditional independence between being prime and being a value of certain quadratic polynomials.

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  The Plimpton 322 tablet

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  Title page of the 1621 edition of Diophantus's Arithmetica, translated into Latin by Claude Gaspard Bachet de Méziriac.

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  Al-Haytham as seen by the West: on the frontispiece of Selenographia Alhasen [sic] represents knowledge through reason and Galileo knowledge through the senses.

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  Pierre de Fermat

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  Leonhard Euler

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  "Here was a problem, that I, a 10 year old, could understand, and I knew from that moment that I would never let it go. I had to solve it." – Sir Andrew Wiles about his proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.

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  Carl Friedrich Gauss's Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, first edition

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  Carl Friedrich Gauss

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  Ernst Kummer

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  Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet

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  Number theorists Paul Erdős and Terence Tao in 1985, when Erdős was 72 and Tao was 10.

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

See also

In Spanish: Teoría de números para niños