number theory - my favorite field of mathematics

Of course, my favorite field of mathematics may change over time, but until now number theory has been my favorite for as long as I remember. How comes? I guess, this is highly linked to my approach and relationship to mathematics: I've always enjoyed playing games, thouroughly understanding them and exploring which rules one has to obey to win most likely. I've always enjoyed solving riddles, "playing around" with numbers and, more generally, being quizzed. So to me mathematics has something playful and as I perceive number theory as "playing around with numbers" it matches the character I want mathematics to have.

But what exactly is number theory about? Number theory is the branch of mathematics which studies mostly integer related topics and, therefore, is one of the oldest branches of mathematics. In general, it is considered to being a pure field of mathematics since most of the mathematicians have engaged in this field because they enjoyed "playing with numbers" and not because they where searching for applicable results. However, nowadays its results are indispensable to computer science, meaning it became seriously applicable. Yet, it still is considered as pure since the motivation and reasons of pursuing number theory lie within mathematics itself and, furthermore, computer science compared to mathematical (and number theoretical) history only developed quite recently.

Interestingly, at most universities number theory isn't found in the obligatory part of the mathematical syllabus and this quite stunned me since I strongly believe that it is one of the fields of mathematics whose problem statements can be understood fairly easily and which in my opinion is quite popular among first-year mathematics students. In particular, I see a strong link between liking to "play with numbers" and liking to play board and card games and it seems as if this eagerness to play is a trait a lot of my fellow students and I have in common.

Exactly because number theory is only taught at an more advanced level, I decided to take a reading course, meaning a course where you together with a professor choose a book on your fields of interest, you study it throughout the semester and are orally examined at the end of it, on number theory this semester to increase my theoretical knowledge in this very interesting topic and even though I have to say that it demands for more effort than what it's worth in credit points, it is a course I'd recommend due to the fact that you can freely choose what to study, even in your very first years at university.