Best Selling Books by Alan Baker

In this book, Professor Baker describes the rudiments of number theory in a concise, simple and direct manner.

Developed from the author''s popular text, A Concise Introduction to the Theory of Numbers, this book provides a comprehensive initiation to all the major branches of number theory. Beginning with the rudiments of the subject, the author proceeds to more advanced topics, including elements of cryptography and primality testing, an account of number fields in the classical vein including properties of their units, ideals and ideal classes, aspects of analytic number theory including studies of the Riemann zeta-function, the prime-number theorem and primes in arithmetical progressions, a description of the Hardy–Littlewood and sieve methods from respectively additive and multiplicative number theory and an exposition of the arithmetic of elliptic curves. The book includes many worked examples, exercises and further reading. Its wider coverage and versatility make this book suitable for courses extending from the elementary to beginning graduate studies.

Alan Baker weaves an extraordinary, vivid picture of Roman life as his compelling and evocative history tells the story of Rome''s most notable gladiators. They were condemned and feared by emperors, slaughtered and adored by the masses and worshipped by their female fans, yet their lives were invariably violently short. Whether their enemy was a starved tiger or a battle-hardened criminal, their numbered days were dark and bloody. Yet men gave up their wealth and freedom to become gladiators and noble-women gave up their positions to be with them. The Gladiator illuminates the extraordinary lives of Spartacus, Commodus, Eppia and others - bringing the same energy and passion to the page that Ridley Scott''s cinematic triumph bough to the screen.

An up-close introduction to the most admired warriors in history "They mounted their horses, grasped the lances made of fine Bordeaux Steel, closed the visors of their helmets, and made their way to their stations for the first course. Spurring their horses on, they advanced toward each other at full gallop, lowering their lances as they approached. The tip of Clifford''s lance caught Boucmel high on his breastplate and was deflected off . . . directly into the young squire''s mail hood, piercing his neck clean through." This tragic account of an ambitious young Frenchman''s senseless death during a "friendly" joust with an English knight underscores the ever-present danger that stalked the flower of European youth in the Middle Ages. In The Knight, you''ll meet John Boucmel, Nicholas Clifford, and scores of other warriors who risked their lives to fill the medieval lists and battlefields in a relentless quest for fame, glory, and victory. This vivid, fast-paced narrative whisks you from the blood-soaked fields of Normandy in the Hundred Years'' War to the battered walls of Jerusalem in the first Crusade, from a sumptuous feast in an English castle to the pomp and pageantry of a spectacular thirty-day jousting tournament. You''ll discover how knights were trained; how they paid for their expensive weapons, armor, and horses; and how the solemn vows they took influenced their behavior both on and off the battlefield. Discover the truth behind the countless legends of the Age of Chivalry in The Knight.

How did the universe begin and how will it end? What happens to us when we die? Do intelligent beings exist elsewhere in our galaxy and beyond? The Edge of Science addresses these and many other questions that have bewildered and perplexed humanity for centuries. Some of these enigmas have been solved through the ingenuity of their investigators; others remain a mystery and have given rise to equally bizarre speculations. From the Tunguska explosion of 1908 to the enigma of the Moon''s origin, from the possibility of time travel to the search for zero-point energy, author Alan Baker examines the many theories that have been presented to account for the world''s most enduring mysteries. Each chapter deals with an enigma that has caused wonder, excitement or fear to all who have pondered it, including: the discovery of strange fossils that hint at an unknown early history of humanity; anomalous structures photographed on the Moon and Mars; the mystery of dark matter and dark energy; and strange disappearances of people and objects. Join Alan Baker as he embarks on a strange, stimulating and sometimes frightening journey to The Edge of Science.

Our best scientific theories explain a wide range of empirical phenomena, make accurate predictions, and are widely believed. Since many of these theories make ample use of mathematics, it is natural to see them as confirming its truth. Perhaps the use of mathematics in science even gives us reason to believe in the existence of abstract mathematical objects such as numbers and sets. These issues lie at the heart of the Indispensability Argument, to which this Element is devoted. The Element''s first half traces the evolution of the Indispensability Argument from its origins in Quine and Putnam''s works, taking in naturalism, confirmational holism, Field''s program, and the use of idealisations in science along the way. Its second half examines the explanatory version of the Indispensability Argument, and focuses on several more recent versions of easy-road and hard-road fictionalism respectively.

Brown Rabbit finds a box of balloons and creates various shapes from them.

A curious white rabbit changes his color as he bathes in pots of paint. Text is Chinese.

Because a young girl imagines that spooky things make the sounds she hears in the dark at bedtime, she is relieved to find the real cause of each sound.

A TERRIFYING MYSTERY OF THE SEA... In December 1900, three lighthouse keepers vanished without trace from the remote Scottish island of Eilean Mor. An emergency relief crew was sent to man the lighthouse. At the end of their month-long duty, they resigned from their posts and never spoke of what they had experienced on the island. The mystery of Eilean Mor has never been solved. Until now. In the present, a group of environmental researchers arrives on the island to observe the wildlife. While exploring the lighthouse, now automated and deserted, one of the team discovers a manuscript written by one of the relief keepers, a man named Alec Dalemore. As a sudden storm moves in, cutting off their escape, the researchers come to realise that Dalemore wrote the manuscript as a warning to all the lighthouse keepers who would come after him. A warning of something on Eilean Mor and in the surrounding ocean - something ancient and powerful, and strange beyond imagining...