Fermat's Last Theorem: The Story of a Riddle That Confounded the World's Greatest Minds for 358 Years

Author - Simon Singh ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Paperback Book item from 4th Estate, Limited was reviewed on 1-Sep-2008.

Search ISBN:1857026691 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. Fermat's Last Theorem: The Story of a Riddle That Confounded the World's Greatest Minds for 358 Years Reference Book. Classifications : General Algebra Pure Mathematics Mathematics Science Subjects Books Number Theory Pure Mathematics Mathematics Science Subjects Books General Mathematics Science Subjects Books Number Theory Pure Math . Click the following link to view the cover of Fermat's Last Theorem: The Story of a Riddle That Confounded the World's Greatest Minds for 358 Years.

Related topics: General. Algebra. Pure Mathematics. Mathematics. Science. Subjects. Books. Number Theory. Pure Mathematics. Mathematics.

1) Paperback Book Fermat's Last Theorem: The Story of a Riddle That Confounded the World's Greatest Minds for 358 Years by 4th Estate, Limited. Enjoyable and educational for the math buff. The book leads gradually up to the Fermat theorem and the reader passes a lot of math during that trip. It is well written and the tough problems are made as understandable for the layman as possible.¤

2) Paperback Book Fermat's Last Theorem: The Story of a Riddle That Confounded the World's Greatest Minds for 358 Years by 4th Estate, Limited. I generally don´t love reading books in long air flights and last time I read one of the grisham books which was so terrible that I thought I have been permanently scarred from reading books ever.
Then I just took this book from library and believe me I did not realize when the last 5 hours of my flights was over (It was 12 hour cross Pacific ocean flight) . The book is simple and a pleasure to read, gives good historical perspective as to how Maths progressed . Also I got a feeling of how maths is different from Science . The strength of the book is the its historical perspective as to how Maths developed and not just getting stuck in Fermat´s Theorem . I will call this book as "Evolution of Maths and Mathematicians" .
As an example, while starting I followed the author and understood that one of the difference between Math and Science is that Maths is exact, absolute (based on some very simple building blocks). Then he gives some great proofs of Pythagoras theorem , proofs that Sqrt(2) is irrational and so on. (thees are in appendix if you want to skip them.) As we move to 2o century, he cleverly introduces another Mathematicians who proves that not all mathematical theorems can be proved right or wrong. Such theorems can not be proven at all. He gave a very famous simple philosophical example to prove this point.Its a paradox with something on the line of "Find out if he is liar by asking just one question" .

Anyway, I loved the book a lot and I will strongly recommend it. Its filled with anecdotes and stories and it kept me spell binding to the end.
¤

3) Paperback Book Fermat's Last Theorem: The Story of a Riddle That Confounded the World's Greatest Minds for 358 Years by 4th Estate, Limited. A good historical account on a topic in Maths Number Theory. Fermats last theorem showing even those good at maths can also struggle with the subject albeit on a different level

Fermat presented his famous and what looked to be a simple equation, and asked mathematicians of his time to prove it, like he said he could. He never showed anyone how to and it is doubtful that he could, probably only proving it for n=3 &/or n=4.

The book then charts through history those mathematicians that made contributions to the proving of the equation

A good historical account but not exactly riveting, compounded by the fact that the average reader would´nt have a hope in hell of ever understanding the maths involved in proving the theory (thankfully not shown in the book), combined with the knowledge that ´maths hardest problem´ is so abstract it doesn´t have many practical uses

At least in Singhs next book, ´The Code Book´ one can relate to and use many of the discoveries within the book¤

4) Paperback Book Fermat's Last Theorem: The Story of a Riddle That Confounded the World's Greatest Minds for 358 Years by 4th Estate, Limited. A theorem is impossible to prove, was written down over three hundred years ago on a book. The one who wrote it didn´t know it would become one of the hardest mathematical mysteries in the world. Then Fermat a Jurist, trying to prove with his own intelligence that no power except a square can be divided into two powers with the same exponent. Fermat committed his whole life to proving the theorem of his. His theorem his trying to prove that the Pythagorean Theorem is not a false/true. While mathematical equations and formulas are being talked about in this book, there is also an unforgettable lesson that all should know. Fermat´s goal: To the secret of ancient mathematical problem.

P.S. It may be a small book; but it holds so much knowledge¤

5) Paperback Book Fermat's Last Theorem: The Story of a Riddle That Confounded the World's Greatest Minds for 358 Years by 4th Estate, Limited. For all the mathematical colleagues, this book has a minimum amount of notation, maybe little more than you can find in Treasure Island. It is a nice readable book, though, if you read it curled up on your couch with a cup of tea at hand, and nothing on mind.

If you are not a math or science major, you would ask me: why should I read this book? I would answer: because math appeals to a large number of people, and, you got to admit it, in this period of time people must know something about it. This theorem, in addition, had puzzled great mathematicians (even geniuses) for more than three and a half centuries. I think this means that it had passed around so many mathematical schools and fields.

The book starts with some exploration of Greek mathematics, being the base of modern thinking. Here we must see something about the Pythagorean Theorem, because it inspired the Fermat´s Last theorem. The author speaks about a nice incident about a Pythagorean being killed for believing that there existed some numbers other than the Rationals (They were called Irrarionals later, even though they are as rational to the modern mathematics as any other numbers, say the quaternions).

He moves then to speak about Fermat, the French mathematician. He mentions that Fermat did not in fact write a proof for his theorem due to the limitation of the margins of his copy of Diaphintine´s "Arithmetica,"! this caused the whole mathematical community to suffer 385 years to construct a plausible proof.

After that, we see how Euler proved the case when n = 3. Then Sophie Germain prove it, inspired by Euler, for the Germain prime numbers (which are some special prime numbers). This eliminated most of the cases, yet there still are infinitely many cases to check. The book does not go into technicalities, but you can enjoy reading about the backgrounds of some of brightest mathematicians of the 19th century.

Then comes some account on cryptography, as being the direct application of Number Theory, followed by the story of how Andrew Wiles, the most famous mathematician of our time, came to prove this theorem.

It proved to be even a harder task. It involved some modern up-to-date mathematics ... some fields of Number Theory called: "Elleptic Curves" and "Modular Forms."

Finally, I would like to say that I read this book when I was at my junior year in the department of mathematics at the University of Missouri-Columbia, I DID NOT NEED MUCH MATH TO UNDERSTAND IT. It, as a matter of fact, inspired me to continue my grad studies in the subject of Number Theory; unfortunately my real mathematical interests won the quarrel and I had to settle with Geometry.

I think any person with some understanding of the notion of mathematics may be very able to enjoy it as much as I did. If you want an introduction to this "mysterious" discipline, this book would provide you the best read.¤

6) Paperback Book Fermat's Last Theorem: The Story of a Riddle That Confounded the World's Greatest Minds for 358 Years by 4th Estate, Limited. xn + yn = zn, where n represents 3, 4, 5, ...no solution

"I have discovered a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain."

With these words, 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; proving it, however, became the Holy Grail of mathematics, baffling its finest minds for more than 350 years.  In Fermat´s Enigma--based on the author´s award-winning documentary film, which aired on PBS´s "Nova"--Simon Singh tells the astonishingly entertaining story of the pursuit of that grail, and the lives that were devoted to, sacrificed for, and saved by it.  Here is a mesmerizing tale of heartbreak and mastery that will forever change your feelings about mathematics.¤

7) Paperback Book Fermat's Last Theorem: The Story of a Riddle That Confounded the World's Greatest Minds for 358 Years by 4th Estate, Limited. 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 of the math, but it also includes limericks to give a feeling for the goofy side of mathematicians.¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 29-Sep-2008, 18570266919781857026696, 9X0-230-590-630-911-K4B-8

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