Nonfiction
Book
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Details
PUBLISHED
©1997
EDITION
DESCRIPTION
xviii, 315 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 18 cm
ISBN/ISSN
LANGUAGE
NOTES
Originally published: New York : Walker, 1997
"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." --
1300L