Fermat's last theorem: The story of a riddle that confounded the world's greatest minds for 358 years

Simon Singh

ISBN 10: 1857026691 / ISBN 13: 9781857026696

Published by Fourth estate, 1998

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Fermat's last theorem: The story of a riddle that confounded the world's greatest minds for 358 years
• Publisher: Fourth estate
• Publication Date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1857026691
• ISBN 13: 9781857026696
• Binding: paperback
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

In 1963, a schoolboy browsing in his local library stumbled across a great mathematical problem: Fermat's Last Theorem, a puzzle that every child can now understand, but which has baffled mathematicians for over 300 years. Aged just ten, Andrew Wiles dreamed he would crack it. Many people had tried before Wiles and failed, including an 18th-century philanderer who was killed in a duel. An 18th-century Frenchwoman made a major breakthrough in solving the riddle, but she had to attend maths lectures at the Ecole Polytechnique disguised as a man. This is the story of the puzzle that has confounded mathematicians since the 17th century. The solution of the Theorem is one of the most important mathematical developments of the 20th century.

Review

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.