History of the Theory of Numbers

The first volume of Dickson's History covers the related topics of divisibility and primality. It begins with a description of the development of our understanding of perfect numbers. Other standard topics, such as Fermat's theorems, primitive roots, counting divisors, the Mobius function, and prime numbers themselves are treated. Dickson, in this thoroughness, also includes less workhorse subjects, such as methods of factoring, divisibility of factorials and properties of the digits of numbers. Concepts, results and citations are numerous.