IRRATIONAL NUMBERS

In this monograph, Ivan Niven, provides a masterful exposition of some central results on irrational, transcendental, and normal numbers. He gives a complete treatment by elementary methods of the irrationality of the exponential, logarithmic, and trigonometric functions with rational arguments. The approximation of irrational numbers by rationals, up to such results as the best possible approximation of Hurwitz, is also given with elementary technique. The last third of the monograph treats normal and transcendental numbers, including the transcendence of and its generalization in the Lindemann theorem, and the Gelfond-Schneider theorem. Most of the material in the first two-thirds of the book presupposes only calculus and beginning number theory. The results needed from analysis and algebra are central, and well-known theorems, and complete references to standard works are given to help the beginner. The chapters are for the most part independent. There is a set if bites at the end of each chapter citing.