The unpredictable drip from a leaky faucet can drive almost anyone mad. Prime numbers, those divisible only by one and themselves, present a numerical equivalent. For centuries, mathematicians have tried to find a simple formula to describe where these numbers fall along the number line. But their spacing--1, 2, 3, drip, 5, drip, 7, drip, drip, drip, 11, drip, and so forth--seems to defy prediction. In 1859 German mathematician Bernhard Riemann uncovered an apparent key to unlocking the pattern, but he couldn't verify it. Many great minds have become obsessed with proving his guess, referred to as the Riemann Hypothesis (RH), ever since.

Three books published in April chronicle this quest. The books cover much of the same ground, but each has a different strength. The text with the simplest title, The Riemann Hypothesis, by science writer Karl Sabbagh, provides ample hand-holding for anyone who pales at the sight of symbols or can't quite distinguish an asymptote from a hole in the graph. In Prime Obsession, by John Derbyshire, a mathematically trained banker and novelist, Riemann and his colleagues come to life as real characters and not just adjectives for conjectures and theorems. And in The Music of the Primes, written by University of Oxford mathematics professor Marcus du Sautoy, the meaning of Riemann's work unfolds by way of rich musical analogies.

   
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