Product Description

Around 1637, the French mathematician Pierre de Fermat wrote that he had found a way to prove a seemingly simple statement: while many square numbers can be broken down into the sum of two other squares - for example, 25 (five squared) equals nine (three squared) plus 16 (four squared) - the same can never be done for cubes or any higher powers. This book provides an account of how Fermat's solution was lost, the consequent struggle by mathematicians to solve this scientific mystery and how the solution was finally found in the 1990s.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1536765 in Books
• Published on: 1998-02-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Customer Reviews

Excellent read, sometimes not going too deep is good.
Another reviewer has mentioned being dissapointed with the lack of depth in this book. But what did you expect from a book with less that 150 pages, on a topic that spans the entire history of Mathematics.

Simon Singh's book may be the definitive account of the solving of Fermat's Last Theorem, but this book is very good. You can get through it in an evening or two and can have a very good grasp of just how many strands of mathematics had to be woven together to solve this problem.

One of the most enjoyable popular mathematics books I've read.

Disappointingly light treatment of a rich subject: Shame
OK: Here we have one of the greatest intellectual dramatic quests of the last four hundred years in which mathematician after mathematician chipped away at a problem before handing the baton on. And what does Mr Aczel give us? A stone skipped across a deep sea, all surface and no allowance for depth. Shame - I bought this by a mistake thinking that this was the title in the best-seller lists. No sooner did I finish than I went out and bought the other, by Simon Singh, which it has to be said

deserves its huge international success.