Fermat's Enigma · The Epic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problem

Fermat's Enigma · The Epic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problem
Authors
Singh, Simon
Publisher
Anchor
Tags
philosophy , non-fiction , history , science , biography
ISBN
9780385493628
Date
1997-09-08T00:00:00+00:00
Size
1.04 MB
Lang
en
Downloaded: 34 times

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.