Kept Girl - Riemann’s paper 1

Dorothy Moorefield

April 23, 2009

What is the Riemann-Zeta function?

I got H.M. Edward’s book ”Riemann’s Zeta Function” for two reasons. One is that in his book, ”In-
troduction to Analytic Number Theory”, Tom M. Apostol says to consult this book for ”a fascinating
account of the story of large-scale calculations concerning ζ(s)”. The other reason is that Riemann’s
actual paper, ”On the Number of Primes Lass than a given Magnitude” is included as an appendix.
The focus of the next few posts will be to break this paper down. I have yet to read this so, you will
be getting a bit of insight into how I learn to understand mathematical texts.

Let s be a complex number. Riemann begins by noting that the Euler product,
Y 1
,
p
1 − p1s

where the product ranges over all primes, is equal to the infinite sum
∞
X 1
s
.
n=1
n

Why is this the case? To find this out we’ll refer to Apostol. [Note: I have forgotten how to do
a proper bibliography in LaTeX. I will look that up soon an revise these posts to give more formal
references. Meanwhile, I am not attempting to violate any copyright stuff. I just want to get notes
written.]
On page 230 in Apostol’s book we have
P
Theorem 0.1 Let f be a multiplicative arithmetical function such that the series f (n) is absolutely
convergent. Then the sum of the series can be expressed as an absolutely convergent infinite product,
∞
X Y
f (n) = [1 + f (p) + f (p2 ) + . . . ]
n=1 p

extended over all primes. If f is completely multiplicative, the product simplifies and we have
∞
X Y 1
f (n) = .
n=1 p
1 − f (p)

Ok so what does that mean? We will dig more into Apostol’s book to find out.

Definition 0.2 A real or complex-values function defined on the positive integers is called an arith-
metical function.

One way of looking at this is to imagine an infinite ordered set of slots that has a definite starting
point. Slot 1 has one and only one real or complex value in it, slot 2 has one and only one real or
complex value in it, so on and so on forever. Now if we lived forever and had nothing better to do, we
could fill in the value for each slot. However, we would not be able to stop and we would never see
our work come to an end. This seems kinda like that dude that has to spend eternity carrying a rock

1
2 Kept Girl

up a mountain only to have it fall down again... blah. In the interest of time and closure, we try to
obtain an input-output system that will allow us to determine what lives in any slot we wish to know
about.

For example, consider the sequence, 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, . . .. Those pattern buffs out there might realize
that:
in slot 1 we have 1, which is 0 + 1
in slot 2 we have 3, which is 0 + 1 + 2,
in slot 3 we have 6, which is 0 + 1 + 2 + 3,
in slot 4 we have 10, which is 0 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 4
and so on

We can see that in slot n, we have the sum of all natural numbers less than or equal to n, denoted by
n
X
k.
k=0

This is an arithmetic function. We can give it a name if we like, say f (n) [this is read f of n]. f (n)
is what we call functional notation, where n is the input value and f (n) is the output value. So we
have:
f (1) = 1
f (2) = 3
f (3) = 6
f (4) = 10.

Suppose we want to know the value f (2112). Then we can add for a very long time, or write a little
computer program to do this for us or do what lots of math folks do, find a nifty formula to give this
to us. It turns out in this case,
n(n + 1)
f (n) =
2
and thus
(2112)(2113)
f (2112) = = 2231328.
2
There are a whole bunch of arithmetical functions out there. The one in particular we are going to
be focusing on is
1
f (n) = s
n
for some complex number s.

To know what it means to be multiplicative we go back to Apostol.

Definition 0.3 An arithmetical function f is called multiplicative if f is not identically zero and if

f (mn) = f (m)f (n)

whenever (m, n) = 1.

A multiplicative function f is called completely multiplicative if we also have

f (mn) = f (m)f (n)

for all m, n.

After checking the time, I’ve decided to take a quick break and then type up today’s main post. We’ll
continue with the explanation soon.