Electronic Proceedings of the Tenth Annual International Conference on Technology in Collegiate MathematicsChicago, Illinois, November 6-9, 1997Paper P009Using Mathematica in a Course on Number Theory |
Kenneth KramerDepartment of Mathematics Queens College (CUNY) Flushing, NY 11367 USA Phone: (718) 997-5838 Fax: (718) 997-5861 kramer@qcvaxa.qc.edu |
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ABSTRACT
Mathematica was introduced in the undergraduate number theory course at Queens College during the Spring 1997 semester, to encourage the discovery of mathematical ideas through guided experiments. In this article, we discuss the philosophy of the course and the way in which programming was first presented. We describe some of projects designed for the course, involving the sieve of Eratosthenes, primes in arithmetic progression, a linear diophantine equation solver and primality testing, factoring and public key codes.Keyword(s): number theory, Mathematica