Fermat's Last Theorem
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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19recommend
29mentions
27people
2011–2026years
72% recommend28% neutral
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What Hacker News says
- On a tangential note, I highly recommend this book by Simon Singh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermat's_Last_Theorem_(book)
- Fiction: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (English translation by Chapman & Hall).
Non-fiction: Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh.
Previous fiction: Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card. Loved Ender's Game when I was younger, but for some reason never picked this up. It's brilliant, even better than Ender's.
Previous non-fiction: Endurance by Alfred Lansing. Well, I couldn't put it down. What a book.
- Fiction:
- "The Dark Forest" by Liu Cixin and the whole Three Body Problem/Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy. Truly massive, grand SciFi. Would recommend 10/10. [HN]
- "Anna Karenina" by Tolstoy. Made me face deeper parts of my mind. Attempted to answer some questions I had. Great story. Huge book. Historical fiction is something I like across languages.
- "Candide" by Voltaire. Genuinely fun and entertaining, besides it being- you know- Voltaire.
- "The Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson. Very good story, world buulding, nice technology. Great thinking by the author.
Non Fiction:
- "Fermat's Last Theorem" by Simon Singh. Was very happy to see a Popular Math book where there are so many Popular Science books. Great book. Goes over FMT's solving history, with many many fun anecdotes, short biographies, etc. Truly enjoyable to read.
- "Code Book" by Simon Singh. Genuinely fun and learned a lot. Cryptography's history, progress, and so much more. [HN]
Self-Help:
- "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig. Truly marvelous book and nice to read. This book requires the reader to be of certain kind attaining a certain level. Without that, this book will seem a fluff and overrated hugely. Fundamentally changed my thinking. [HN]
- "Four Thousand Weeks" by Oliver Bourkeman. Thought this was about saner time management with some wisdom. But was much deeper than that. Will recommend.
Bengali:
- "Abhajaner Mahabharat" by Mahbub Lilen. A fun and serious retelling of the Mahabharata. Goes deep, too. Really fun to read.
- "Khana Mihirer Dhipi" by Bani Basu. An account of feminism in the light of female-dominated inner part of Bengali elite households- and that in the light of female dominated, fully maternalistic hunter-gatherers of early human history. Very thought provoking and unique.
[HN]- chose primarily because recommendation in some past HN threads.
Read 23 so far. Target is 25. Currently reading Snow Crash and Exhalation.
- Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh.
I really like it. There are lots of popular science books out there, but very few popular math ones. I am grateful that this exists.
Read the author's Code Book before. Liked that one, too. I was also taking Cryptography and Cybersecurity as one of my Master's electives.
This book does not cover the journey of solving the Fermat's Last Theorem narrowly, but broadly covers a lot of history of mathematics in a very nice way. The writing is superb.
- I recently read a really nice short overview of Galois' life. This was in Simon Singh’s book- Fermat's Last Theorem.
I highly recommend the whole book as well, as well as his "Code Book".
- A math history book about one specific area of study written more in a popsci style that I liked: one of my favorite authors (David Foster Wallace) wrote "Everything & More: A Compact History of Infinity" which I'd call a 7/10 pop math experience and a 6/10 DFW experience, which is still a pretty good deal.
If you're no Math PhD but you are mathematically inclined (e.g. I studied plenty of math as an undergraduate but left to play the software industry game thereafter) you should have the errata document handy (I'll link the parent page that has other paratext [1]) - the author is a math enthusiast but not a mathematician and gets some of the finer details incorrect.
I also read Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh and recall liking it, but I can't recall if it holds up under either mathematical scrutiny or the scrutiny of a more refined palate.
[1] https://www.thehowlingfantods.com/dfw/everything-and-more.ht...
