The last problem
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The last problem
Mathematical Association of America, c1990
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Note
"This book was updated and reviesed from the 1961 edition published by Sim on and Schuster"
Description and Table of Contents
Description
What Eric Temple Bell calls the last problem is the problem of proving 'Fermat's Last Theorem', which Fermat wrote in the margin of a book almost 350 years ago. The original text of The Last Problem traced the problem from 2000 BC to 17th century France. Along the way we learn quite a bit about history, and just as much about mathematics. Underwood Dudley's notes bring us up-to-date on recent attempts to solve the problem - for the latest printing, he has added a three page addendum about its recent proof by Andrew Wiles. This book fits no categories. It is not a book of mathematics: it is a biography of a famous problem. Pages go by without an equation appearing. It is both a history of number theory and its place in our civilisation, and a history of our civilisation's relationship with mathematics. This rich and varied, wide-ranging book, written with force and vigor by someone with a distinctive style and point of view will provide hours of enjoyable reading for anyone interested in mathematics.
Table of Contents
- 1. Prospectus: unfinished business
- 2. The far beginnings: Babylon and Egypt
- 3. Philosophical interlude
- 4. Alexander's contribution
- 5. Cleopatra's gift
- 6. From Euclid to Hypatia
- 7. Dating - collapse - recovery
- 8. The last Euclidean: Bachet (1581-1638)
- 9. Mathematician and jurist - Fermat
- 10. The catalyst: Mersenne (1588-1648)
- 11. Friends and others
- 12. From the correspondence of Fermat
- 13. An age to remember
- 14. The jurist
- 15. Aftermath.
by "Nielsen BookData"