Fermat's Enigma: Epic Quest To Solve The Worlds Greatest Mathematical Problem

"I have discovered a truly marvelous proof, which this margin is too narrow to contain."

With these tantalizing word, the seventeenth-century French mathematician Pierre de Fermat threw down the gauntlet to future generations. What came to be known as Fermat's Last Theorem looked simple, yet the finest mathematical minds would be baffled for more than three and half centuries. Fermat's Last Theorem became the Holy Grail of mathematics. Whole and colourful lives were devoted to, and even sacrificed, to finding a solution.

Then, came Princeton Professor Andrew Wiles, who had dreamed of proving Fermat ever since he first read of it as a boy of ten in his local library. In 1993, some 356 years after Fermat's challenge, and after seven years of working in isolation and secrecy, Wiles stunned the world by announcing a proof-though his own journey would be far from over. Fermat's Enigma is the story of the epic quest to solve the greatest math problem of all time. It is a human drama of high dreams, intellectual brilliance, and extraordinary determination.

When Andrew Wiles of Princeton University announced a solution of Fermat's last theorem in 1993 it electrified the world of mathematics. After a flaw was discovered in the proof, Wiles had to work for another year--he had already labored in solitude for seven years--to establish that he had solved the 350-year-old problem. Simon Singh's book is a lively, comprehensible explanation of Wiles's work and of the star-, trauma-, and wacko-studded history of Fermat's last theorem. Fermat's Enigma contains some problems that offer a taste for the math, but it also includes limericks to give a feeling for the goofy side of mathematicians.