From the reviews of the first edition:
"Anyone who enjoys the logic and reasoning of mathematics and has a strong undergraduate mathematics background should enjoy this book...I would imagine that few mathematicians have seen all these proofs. The combination of ideas in many of the proofs should delight mathematicians everywhere."
- MAA ONLINE
The (mathematical) heroes of this book are "perfect proofs": brilliant ideas, clever connections and wonderful observations that bring new insight and surprising perspectives on basic and challenging problems from number theory, geometry, analysis, combinatorics, and graph theory. Thirty beautiful examples are presented here. They are candidates for THE BOOK in which God records the perfect proofs - according to the late Paul Erdös, who suggested many of the topics in this collection. The result is a book which will be fun for everybody with an interest in mathematics, requiring only a very modest (undergraduate) mathematical background. For this revised and expanded second edition several chapters have been revised and expanded, and three new chapters have been added.
This revised and enlarged fourth edition of "Proofs from THE BOOK" features five new chapters, which treat classical results such as the "Fundamental Theorem of Algebra", problems about tilings, but also quite recent proofs, for example of the Kneser conjecture in graph theory. The new edition also presents further improvements and surprises, among them a new proof for "Hilbert's Third Problem".
From the Reviews
"... Inside PFTB (Proofs from The Book) is indeed a glimpse of mathematical heaven, where clever insights and beautiful ideas combine in astonishing and glorious ways. There is vast wealth within its pages, one gem after another. Some of the proofs are classics, but many are new and brilliant proofs of classical results. ...Aigner and Ziegler... write: "... all we offer is the examples that we have selected, hoping that our readers will share our enthusiasm about brilliant ideas, clever insights and wonderful observations." I do. ... " Notices of the AMS, August 1999
"... This book is a pleasure to hold and to look at: ample margins, nice photos, instructive pictures, and beautiful drawings ... It is a pleasure to read as well: the style is clear and entertaining, the level is close to elementary, the necessary background is given separately, and the proofs are brilliant. Moreover, the exposition makes them transparent. ..."
LMS Newsletter, January 1999
