That’s “Prime Obsession” in Chinese. Some questions from readers: How did the translation work out? Is this mainland China or Taiwan? Shall I make any money out of it? Did the translator attempt to translate the Riemann Hypothesis Song in the appendix?

So far as I can tell, which actually isn’t very far, the translation (by someone named Chen Ke-gang, not known to me) is faithful, and pretty conscientious. It’s a Taiwan publication. I anticipate making no more than a few hundred dollars from it. (There aren’t that many people in Taiwan; not many of them care about analytic number theory; and by the time the local publisher, the translator, and my publisher have taken their share, there isn’t much left for the poor author.)

To his credit, Mr. Chen did attempt a translation of the song. Here, however, the old Italian quip about poetry translations being like women kicks in: “Those that are faithful, are not beautiful; those that are beautiful, are not faithful.” Mr. Chen’s work is, as I said, faithful. In fact, my attempts to sing his translation to the tune of “Sweet Betsy from Pike” have so far met with utter failure. To see what I am up against, here is the first verse, as he translated it:

ZETA-de ling-dian ya, ni-men zai na-li,

Duo zai yun shen-chu qing-wen you shei de xi?

G.F.B. Li-man cai-de hao: “Ta-men zai lin-jie xian shang,

Mi-du shi yi chu-yi er pai zai cheng LOG T.”

If you can render THAT in anapaestic tetrameter, you’re a better man than I am.