The Millennium Problems 1 - Hardcover

Devlin, Keith

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0465017290 ISBN 13: 9780465017294

Publisher: Basic Books, 2002

Synopsis

In 2000, the Clay Foundation of Cambridge, Massachusetts, announced a historic competition: whoever could solve any of seven extraordinarily difficult mathematical problems, and have the solution acknowledged as correct by the experts, would receive 1 million in prize money. There was some precedent for doing this: in 1900 David Hilbert, one of the greatest mathematicians of his day, proposed twenty-three problems, now known as the Hilbert Problems, that set much of the agenda for mathematics in the twentieth century. The Millennium Problems are likely to acquire similar stature, and their solution (or lack of one) is likely to play a strong role in determining the course of mathematics in the current century. Keith Devlin, renowned expositor of mathematics, tells here what the seven problems are, how they came about, and what they mean for math and science.These problems are the brass rings held out to today's mathematicians, glittering and just out of reach. In the hands of Keith Devlin, "the Math Guy" from NPR's "Weekend Edition," each Millennium Problem becomes a fascinating window onto the deepest and toughest questions in the field. For mathematicians, physicists, engineers, and everyone else with an interest in mathematics' cutting edge, The Millennium Problems is the definitive account of a subject that will have a very long shelf life.

About this title

About the Author

Keith Devlin is the Executive Director of the Center for the Study of Language and Information at Stanford University. He lives in Palo Alto, California.

From Publishers Weekly

The noble idea that advanced mathematics can be made comprehensible to laypeople is tested in this sometimes engaging but ultimately unsatisfying effort. Mathematician and NPR commentator Devlin (The Math Gene) bravely asserts that only "a good high-school knowledge of mathematics" is needed to understand these seven unsolved problems (each with a million-dollar price on its head from the Clay Mathematics Institute), but in truth a Ph.D. would find these thickets of equations daunting. Devlin does a good job with introductory material; his treatment of topology, elementary calculus and simple theorems about prime numbers, for example, are lucid and often fun. But when he works his way up to the eponymous problems he confronts the fact that they are too abstract, too encrusted with jargon, and just too hard. He finally throws in the towel on the Birch and Sinnerton-Dyer Conjecture ("Don't feel bad if you find yourself getting lost... the level of abstraction is simply too great for the nonexpert"), while the chapter on the Hodge Conjecture is so baffling that the second page finds him morosely conceding that "the wise strategy might be to give up." Nor does Devlin make a compelling case for the real-world importance of many of these problems, rarely going beyond vague assurances that solving them "would almost certainly involve new ideas that will... have other uses." Sadly, this quixotic book ends up proving that high-level mathematics is beyond the reach of all but the experts.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0465017290
• ISBN 13: 9780465017294
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256