Strong approximation methods in group theory, an LMS/EPSRC Short course lecture notes

These are the lecture notes for the LMS/EPSRC short course on strong approximation methods in linear groups organized by Dan Segal in Oxford in September 2007.Comment: v4: Corollary 6.2 corrected, added a few small remark

What is the best approach to counting primes?

As long as people have studied mathematics, they have wanted to know how many primes there are. Getting precise answers is a notoriously difficult problem, and the first suitable technique, due to Riemann, inspired an enormous amount of great mathematics, the techniques and insights permeating many different fields. In this article we will review some of the best techniques for counting primes, centering our discussion around Riemann's seminal paper. We will go on to discuss its limitations, and then recent efforts to replace Riemann's theory with one that is significantly simpler.Comment: To appear in a volume dedicated to the MAA Centennial in 201

The inverse sieve problem in high dimensions

We show that if a big set of integer points in [0,N]^d, d>1, occupies few residue classes mod p for many primes p, then it must essentially lie in the solution set of some polynomial equation of low degree. This answers a question of Helfgott and Venkatesh.Comment: 15 pages. Added more examples in Section 5 and some minor change