Pythagorean Crimes - Hardcover

Tefcros Michaelides

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1930972261 ISBN 13: 9781930972261

Publisher: Parmenides Publishing, 2008

Synopsis

Athens, 1929. Stefanos Kantartzis is found murdered, and Michael Igerinos, his best friend of 30 years, is being questioned by the police as the last person to see him alive. 

While looking at his dead friend’s body, Michael is immediately taken back to the late summer of 1900 when he and Stefanos first met in the crammed Sorbonne University lecture hall. The story of their friendship begins during the Second International Congress of Mathematics—an event that was to become a landmark for 20th century mathematical research.

At the root of this historically based work of fiction lies the question as to whether the solution to a mathematical problem could inspire such passion, so intense and perilous, as to drive someone to murder.

The story takes the reader behind the scenes of academia, into the world of Bertrand Russell, Hilbert, Poincaré, and Gödel, and through the streets of Bohemian Paris at the heyday of Montmartre, the Moulin Rouge, and the “Zut”—the infamous hangout of Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, Max Jacob, and many other colorful characters.

Pythagorean Crimes follows in the tradition of popular mathematical fiction like Doxiadis’ Uncle Petros and Goldbach’s Conjecture and Martinez’ Oxford Murders. Yet brings with it old-world charm and the cultural richness of the social, political, scientific and intellectual circles of early 20th century France, Germany, and Greece.

 

About this title

About the Author:

Tefcros Michaelides holds a PhD from Pierre et Marie Curie University in Paris, and was awarded “Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques” by the French Government. He is a Professor of Mathematics at Athens College, Greece. His published works include Mathimatika Epikera(A Mathematician’s View of Everyday Events), and numerous original studies on the role of mathematics in literature from antiquity to the modern era, and from Chinese texts to the newest science-fiction works. He has also translated many books into Greek, including A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, the widely acclaimed and successful The Parrot's Theorem by Denis Guedj, Timescape by Gregory Benford, and D’Alembert's Principle and Mobius Dick by Andrew Crumey.        

Review:

"Pythagorean Crimes is a thriller of the mind. It's the thinking-person's answer to the Da Vinci Code. This novel gives a glimpse into the intellectually-charged atmosphere of early 20th century Europe. You're drawn into the characters' devotion to their work, and you wish you were sitting at the next table at the cafe, overhearing their conversations. Not content to just explore the personalities behind the intellectual developments of the 19th and 20th centuries, this novel makes the scholars' mathematical work as compelling as any of the characters.

Few people associate mathematics and the sciences with the bustling social scene led by Picasso and his colleagues. Tefcros Michaelides breaks the stereotypes about mathematicians and their work as he spins a compelling tale about the greatest minds of 100 years ago and their passions for their work. This novel gives us a glimpse of what it was like to be an eager, young, and up-and-coming scholar during a time where intellectual pursuits were ripe for the picking. Pythagorean Crimes shares what it's like to have a single-minded focus on a mathematical problem. This novel transports the reader (even one with no mathematical background) into a world where the pursuit of mathematical truth is an all-consuming force."
—Dr. Amy Szczepanski
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pre-Algebra (2008)

"Pythagorean Crimes is a masterly-told story of romance, art, history, political intrigue, and mathematics, all woven together in a thriller that will be sure to captivate you from the first page to the last."
—Eli Maor
The Pythagorean Theorem: a 4,000-Year History and To Infinity and Beyond: A Cultural History of the Infinite
 

"Tefcros Michaelides sets his mystery of the murder of a Greek mathematics high-school teacher against the backdrop of the history of early modernism and the great philosophical questions at the heart of modern mathematics. It’s a delightful synthesis, at once great fun to read and insightful, giving a rare side view of the cultural significance of Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem."
—Apostolos Doxiadis
Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture

About this edition

• Publisher: Parmenides Publishing
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1930972261
• ISBN 13: 9781930972261
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 300