Elementary Number Theory

[sEsposito]

Does anyone have any comments or reviews to share on Gareth Jones' Elementary Number Theory? Is it suitable for an introduction to the subject?

If not, what is the recommended book?

[mathwonk]

I am not a number theorist, but when I asked my number theory friends to recommend books, some of them suggested the one by Vanden Eynden.

reviewers on amazon agree vanden eynden is good but think $50+ is too expensive for it. (Of course I got mine free.) Maybe a library has it. The reviewers there also mostly like jones and jones, but several people say jones omits crucial non - intuitive steps from some proofs.

[sEsposito]

Thanks very much for your input. I'm going to look into the Vanden Eynden book. It looks like I might be able to get it for around $30.00, which isn't too bad for a hardcover text.

On a side note, I've heard less than stellar things about Jones also. That's why I wanted to see if anyone else on here has a different opinion of the text...

[mathwonk]

One thing number theorists seem to agree on: it is important to learn quadratic reciprocity well.

[hitmeoff]

I just finished taking the first quarter of undergrad number theory. We used the book by Shoup which was absolutely terrible.

Late in the quarter I discovered the book by Underwood Dudley which completely cleared up so many things for me; its a damn shame I didnt look at this book earlier in the quarter, woulda made the summer so much easier. Anyway, the book is great and its a dover editions so its also cheap.

[sEsposito]

I got the Vanden Eynden book yesterday and have started going through it.. It's a wonderful book. I'm very pleased and would recommend it to anyone looking to get into number theory. I get the feeling that once I finish this book I'll be more than aptly prepared for a course in number theory (b/c I am studying this on my own right now) and that I'll be able to move on to more advanced number theory texts and topics. Thanks for the recommendation, mathwonk.

[mathwonk]

thank you for the testimonial. now i can recommend it with even more confidence.