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References E.2 General References

There are many good introductory number theory texts.

[1]
  
Gareth A. and J. Mary Jones, Elementary Number Theory, Springer, London, (2005). (Website)
Note

A good introduction with an emphasis on groups, containing interleaved exercises with full answers.

[2]
  
G. H. Hardy and E. M. Wright, An Introduction to the Theory of Numbers, fifth edition, Oxford, (1979) (Website for expanded sixth edition)
Note

A highly regarded text with copious notes, but sometimes more than a little hard to parse with its consecutively numbered theorems and very dense prose.

[3]
  
William Stein, Elementary Number Theory: Primes, Congruences, and Secrets, Springer, (2008) (Website)
Note

Freely available and the first Sage-enabled number theory text, by the founder of Sage (a number theorist).

[4]
  
Ken Rosen, Elementary Number Theory and its Applications, Pearson, (2011). (Website)
Note

A venerable text with programming exercises that still wear well.

[5]
  
David C. Marshall, Edward Odell, Michael Starbird, Number Theory through Inquiry, Mathematical Association of America, Washington, (2007). (Website)
Note

The topics are very standard, but the approach is quite different; no proofs, only statements. This turns out to be a highly effective pedagogy; see the Academy of Inquiry Based Learning for more information.

[6]
  
R. P. Burn, A pathway into number theory, Cambridge, (1996) (Website)
Note

A very fun inquiry-driven text before there were such things, with a lot of extremely good examples, especially in things like quadratic forms.

[7]
  
John Stillwell, Elements of Number Theory, Springer, (2003) (Website)
Note

More algebraically oriented, with good material on the Pell equation and Gaussian integers – noteworthy for a good treatment of Conway's river concepts.

[8]
  
Harold Shapiro, Introduction to the Theory of Numbers, Dover, (2008) (No website)
Note

Incredibly comprehensive, at a fairly high level. Good material on averages and odd perfection, immense bibliography and notes in style of [E.2.2], and also inquiry-driven “do-it-yourself” sections. Appears to be out of print.

[9]
  
Anthony Gioia, The Theory of Numbers, Dover, (2001) (No website)
Note

Surprisingly detailed and high-level but has good coverage of several unusual topics such as geometry of numbers.

[10]
  
Marty Erickson, Anthony Vazzana, David Garth, Introduction to Number Theory, second edition, CRC, (2016). (Website)
Note

Enough material for two courses, some fairly advanced, and newly endowed with downloadable Sage worksheets for use with local or online CoCalc.

[11]
  
George Andrews, Number Theory, Dover, (1994) (Website)
Note

Yet another nice reprint from Dover, this one with (as one would expect of the author) great combinatorial content.

[12]
  
H. M. Edwards, Higher Arithmetic: An Algorithmic Introduction to Number Theory, American Mathematical Society, (2006) (Website)
Note

Not so algorithmic, but very, very concrete and constructive. Squares are \(\square\)s, which grows on the reader.

[13]
  
Neville Robbins, Beginning Number Theory, Jones and Bartlett, (2006) (No website)
Note

An out-of-print standard text with many similar topics and interesting historical comments.

[14]
  
Oystein Ore, Invitation to Number Theory, Mathematical Association of America, (1967) (Website)
Note

An older text that is still worth the conversational tone.

[15]
  
Duff Campbell, An Open Door to Number Theory, American Mathematical Society/MAA Press, (2018), (Website)
Note

Careful emphasis throughout on getting a novice student ready for abstract algebra/algebraic number theory, with \(\mathbb{Q}[\sqrt{d}]\) coherent in an elementary text. Don't miss continued fractions in the service of the Bezout identity and the many interesting projects, including one on the \(p\)-adic numbers.