NUMBER THEORY & CRYPTOGRAPHY

Catalog description

An overview of one of the many beautiful areas of mathematics and its modern application to secure communication. The course is ideal for any student who wants a taste of mathematics outside of, or in addition to, the calculus sequence. Topics to be covered include: prime numbers, congruences, perfect numbers, primitive roots, quadratic reciprocity, sums of squares, and Diophantine equations. Applications include error-correcting codes, symmetric and public key cryptography, secret sharing, and zero knowledge proofs. (Cross-listed with CSCI 8566 , MATH 4560 , MATH 8566 ).