Name: Symmetry and the Monster
ISBN: 9780192807236

Symmetry and the Monster

"Mathematics is driven forward by the quest to solve a small number of major problems--the four most famous challenges being Fermat's Last Theorem, the Riemann Hypothesis, Poincaré's Conjecture, and the quest for the 'Monster' of Symmetry. Now, in an exciting, fast-paced historical narrative ranging across two centuries, Mark Ronan takes us on an exhilarating tour of this final mathematical quest. Ronan describes how the quest to understand symmetry really began with the tragic young genius Evariste Galois, who died at the age of 20 in a duel. Galois, who spent the night before he died frantically scribbling his unpublished discoveries, used symmetry to understand algebraic equations, and he discovered that there were building blocks or 'atoms of symmetry.' Most of these building blocks fit into a table, rather like the periodic table of elements, but mathematicians have found 26 exceptions. The biggest of these was dubbed 'the Monster'--a giant snowflake in 196,884 dimensions. Ronan, who personally knows the individuals now working on this problem, reveals how the Monster was only dimly seen at first. As more and more mathematicians became involved, the Monster became clearer, and it was found to be not monstrous but a beautiful form that pointed out deep connections between symmetry, string theory, and the very fabric and form of the universe."--pub. desc.

What Hacker News says

jaymzcampbellAug 2017

I've got that and read it (well tried to read it) multiple times. The first few chapters I agree are readable and a nice introduction but it rapidly descends into very technical and IMO quite opaque writing. I would've preferred a book twice the length that had aspects of a maths textbook. As it stands I think the authors of that work assume far too much for the latter half of the book.

It's also terribly typeset on Kindle. I only mention because I also recommended this book a month or so ago on the post about the quintic [1]. I gave this a 3/5 on Amazon UK. Here's my review [2]:

> This review relates to the (shockingly expensive) kindle edition. At almost £20 you would expect the publishers to have proofed this a lot more. There are references throughout to pages and theorems that have no link (and are therefore difficult to follow on an e-reader), some footnotes are instead displayed inline which is confusing, in other places there are errors in the rendered formulas that force you to stop and re-read it to work out what bit was printed wrong.

> The material itself is certainly interesting but the authors are I think deluding themselves if they believe this a book accessible to someone with just a knowledge of calculus. I've studied group theory formally and this book is heavy going. Part 1 is reasonable but beyond that, it quickly becomes dense and terse and far too short. I had high hopes for this book but it, unfortunately, falls short of the mark. I wish it was twice the length and with more care to the proofing during the ebook creation.

On the topic of the Monster group, there was a very much pop-math book about it that I read called "Symmetry and the Monster". It's at the total opposite end of the spectrum compared to Fearless Symmetry (which deals with Galois theory). It's a good casual read [3] but don't expect deep insight. I would really love if there was an author like Paul Nahin [4] writing books on abstract mathematics in a similar style. If you are into just generally "advanced" books that are very readable he is an absolute joy.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14687242

[2] https://www.amazon.co.uk/review/R187P6WQO86SRB/ref=cm_cr_rdp...

[3] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Symmetry-Monster-Greatest-Quests-Ma...

[4] https://www.amazon.com/Paul-J.-Nahin/e/B001HCS1XI

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felixcqDec 2014

To anyone interested in reading more about the how the classification of finite simple groups was "discovered" over time (the main families, then each new sporadic group, and finally proving that all of them have indeed been found), I strongly recommend reading the following book: Symmetry and the Monster, by Mark Ronan.

It's not so much about the math than the history behind the quest, with took about 50 years to be completed.

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