# Importance of large gaps between zeros of zeta function?

I have noticed that there are quite a few publications, many of them recent, on trying to determine the supremum of the gaps (normalized) between zeros of $\zeta \left(\frac{1}{2} + i t \right)$. Several make use of Wirtinger's inequality. I've been studying some of these papers in an attempt to broaden my knowledge of the zeta function.

My question is this - why are people interested in determining information about the gaps? I assume that there must be some information encoded in the gap sizes about the distribution of prime numbers. Is there a publication or book in which I could read about the reasons for studying the gaps?

Thanks, Tom

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Hope this does not appear rude, it is not meant so: Don't the paper you read have some introduction? I am specifically asking as I just checked for some papers on this subject, and all of them contain some motivation (some more some less), basically along the lines of the first answer. –  quid Feb 19 '11 at 19:54
No problem, not taken as rude. It turns out that the papers I've been reading (e. g. <arxiv.org/abs/0903.4007>;, <arxiv.org/abs/1001.0494>) don't address the motivation; I did some looking around and found a couple that do talk about the class number issues. Thanks for pointing this out. I'll need to widen my reading, and also learn about class numbers! Tom –  Tom Dickens Feb 20 '11 at 1:27