Fermat's Enigma

Scheduled to be published across the globe, the story of Fermat's Last Theorem, devised by the seventeenth-century French mathematician Pierre de Fermat, recounts the struggles of three and a half centuries of scientists to devise a proof for it.

YAAThe riveting story of a mathematical problem that sprang from the study of the Pythagorean theorem developed in ancient Greece. The book follows mathematicians and scientists throughout history as they searched for new mathematical truths. In the 17th century, a French judicial assistant and amateur mathematician, Pierre De Fermat, produced many brilliant ideas in the field of number theory. The Greeks were aware of many whole number solutions to the Pythagorean theorem, where the sum of two perfect squares is a perfect square. Fermat stated that no whole number solutions exist if higher powers replace the squares in this equation. He left a message in the margin of a notebook that he had a proof, but that there was insufficient space there to write it down. His note was found posthumously, but the solution remained a mystery for 350 years. Finally, after working in isolation for eight years, Andrew Wiles, a young British mathematician at Princeton University, published a proof in 1995. Although this famous question has been resolved, many more remain unsolved, and new problems continually arise to challenge modern minds. This vivid account is fascinating reading for anyone interested in mathematics, its history, and the passionate quest for solutions to unsolved riddles. The book includes 19 black-and-white photos of mathematicians and occasional sketches of ancient mathematicians as well as diagrams of formulas. The illustrations help to humanize the subject and add to the readability.APenny Stevens, Centreville Regional Library, Centreville, VA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The proof of Fermat's Last Theorem has been called the mathematical event of the century; this popular account puts the discovery in perspective for non-mathematicians. As one of the producers of the BBC Horizons show on how the 300-year-old puzzle was solved, Singh had ample opportunity to interview Andrew Wiles, the Princeton professor who made the historic breakthrough. As a schoolboy in England, Wiles stumbled across a popular account of Fermat's puzzle: the assertion that no pair of numbers raised to a power higher than two can add up to a third number raised to the same power. Singh traces the roots of the problem in ancient geometry, from the school of Pythagoras (whose famous theorem is clearly its inspiration) up to the flowering of mathematics in the Renaissance, when Fermat, a French judge who dabbled in number theory, stated the problem and claimed to have found a proof of it. Generations of the finest mathematicians failed to corroborate his claim. Singh gives a colorful and generally easy-to-follow summary of much of the mathematical theory that was generated in attempts to prove Fermat's conjecture. Finally, in the 1950s, two Japanese mathematicians came up with a conjecture concerning elliptical equations that, at the time, seemed to have nothing to do with Fermat's problem. But it was the Taniyama-Shimuru conjecture that gave Wiles the opening to solve the problem after working in isolation for seven years. He announced his proof at a famous mathematical congress in Cambridge, England--a truly great moment in mathematical history. Then a flaw in the proof presented itself- -and Wiles went back to work for over a year to patch it up. Finally he succeeded, and the greatest problem in mathematical history was laid to rest. A good overview of one of the great intellectual puzzles of modern history. (photos and line drawings) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

For over 350 years, despite the efforts of many ingenious mathematicians, the postulate known as Fermat's Last Theorem remained unproven. It seemed that the 1993 solution proposed by Princeton professor Andrew Wiles would become another casualty until he rescued it with a brilliant insight. Singh, a physicist who also directed a documentary film on this topic, relates the theorem's story over 2500 years, moving from ancient Greece, where it was first conceived, to its recent, triumphant solution. Through his engaging renderings of the mathematicians who took on Fermat's challenge over the years, the author captures the joys and frustrations of this quest for an extremely elusive proof. Readers with a high school-level knowledge of number theory will have no trouble following the text. Comparatively, Amir Aczel's Fermat's Last Theorem (LJ 10/15/96) is more concise (it can be read in two hours) and somewhat easier to understand, but Singh's book has more perspective and builds to a truly engrossing climax. It's a mathematical page-turner.?Gregg Sapp, Univ. of Miami Lib., Coral Gables, Fla.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.