Fermat's Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problem
Books / Paperback
Books › Mathematics › History & Philosophy
ISBN: 0385493622 / Publisher: Anchor, September 1998
A national best-seller traces the quest of scientists around the world to solve the theorem devised by seventeenth-century French mathematician Pierre de Fermat, a story of extraordinary human emotion, ambition, and desperation. Reprint.
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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.
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