Simon Singh likes to work against the grain. He decides to write about a mathematical problem that gained iconic status because of a teasing, 300-year-old note in the margin of a book, but won’t seem all that important to non-mathematicians. To make things tougher, the significance of the problem can only be explained by using equations, symbols and mathematical terminology. The note, scribbled in Latin, simply states: “I have a truly marvellous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain.” When the problem is finally solved at the end of the 20th century the answer runs to 100 pages of dense mathematical logic. Nor does this answer offer a single moment of climax: instead the solution has even the most committed professional mathematicians scratching their heads for a bit. Singh doesn’t get a lot of help from the two figures at the heart of this book. Pierre de Fermat was a 17th century judge and amateur mathematician who wilfully refused to publish his proofs. “Publication and recognition meant nothing to him,” says Singh, which is why Fermat still means nothing to most of us. Andrew Wiles, the British mathematician who solved the eponymous puzzle 20 years… Read full this story
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