Number Theory - Applications

Applications

The number-theorist Leonard Dickson (1874-1954) said "Thank God that number theory is unsullied by any application". Such a view is no longer applicable to number theory. In 1974 Donald Knuth said "...virtually every theorem in elementary number theory arises in a natural, motivated way in connection with the problem of making computers do high-speed numerical calculations". Elementary number theory is taught in discrete mathematics courses for computer scientists, and on the other hand number theory also has applications to the continuous in numerical analysis. As well as the well-known applications to cryptography, there are also applications to many other areas of mathematics.