h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I don't know what you were thinking, but you actually can get this sort of material through--in little bites. You have to assume not much more than high school mathematics and whatever is already in the guide. This subject matter would be good for breaking down into pieces to see what its parts are for the kind of reader described, and then to fill the order. If you want to try to put that effort in, I'd be more than happy to assist.

My intent was to show how much mileage you could get from one idea (partitioning). But yes, it could be broken down into several articles (and it would probably be better). I've already been thinking about writing a Guide Entry on quadratic reciprocity. I've got Franz Lemmermeyer's book on reciprocity as a reference. He lists the approximately 200 proofs of quadratic reciprocity that have been published. Oddly enough, I didn't see the proof using Perron's theorem that I mentioned in the Guide Entry (although it's hard to tell from the brief descriptions of the method of proof). I found the proof using Perron's theorem in Lek Vermani's book on algebraic coding theory.

I would start on quadratic reciprocity with a brief comment of your own--a quote would be better--on the place of number theory within mathematics, and then remark for the twelve-year-old reader on the fact that the theorem in question is so basic and important that there are at least [place correct number] nearly distinct proofs and whole books that deal with the variety of proofs. Then I would pick two proofs that look very different from each other and simply quote after defining the terms for a non-mathematician and stating the difficulty level. At the end I would make the briefest of comments of a technical nature about what's been done with the whole subject area since. I would shoot for the equivalent of 2500-3500 words.

I'll look at your work at any time you wish, if you do decide to work on it.