- Paperback
- Publisher: Anchor (1998)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0385493622
- ISBN-13: 978-0385493628
- Product Dimensions: 12.4 x 2.2 x 17.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 227 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (181 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #366,738 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Enter the world of the mathematician.,
By Singh's book chronicles the development of mathematics from ancient Greece to the 1990s. Singh begins with a discussion of Pythagoras and his famous theorem for calculating right triangles. It is the Pythagorean formula that is the basis for Fermat's equation. Singh then discusses the many famous mathematicians that had attempted to reproduce Fermat's proof. Although they were able to prove the formula's validity for specific values of n, no one had succeeded in proving it for infinite values of n. Without this proof of universality, there had existed the possibility that some value will disprove Fermat's assertion. Singh then focuses his attention on Andrew Wiles, the man who would succeed where others had failed. After studying the futile attempts of his predecessors, Wiles decides to employ twentieth century mathematics. With developments from other colleagues in other areas of mathematics, Wiles embarks on a personal and secretive mission to resolve this enduring problem and a contemporary mathematical challenge. Fermat's Enigma is a nontechnical exploration of the mathematics and mathematicians from ancient Greece to the twentieth century. It requires knowledge of only high school mathematics.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing Mathematical Saga,
By
This review is from: Fermat's Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problem (Paperback)
Singh and Lynch have successfully presented one of the most abstract subjects in a simple to understand language. For those who put down a Maths book by looking at the complex equations: Fear Not, this one does not go too deep into equations and relies more on plain English to convey the point. I think that Appendixes could have been a bit more descriptive. Overall it was a fun read. I highly recommend this one for Mathematics appetite of Not-So-Mathematical.
2.0 out of 5 stars
An Enigma still Not Understood,
By Random Joys "nicholasgeo" (Carmel, IN USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Fermat's Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problem (Paperback)
I read Singh's FERMAT'S ENIGMA after reading Singh's CODE BOOK. Unfortunately, the latter is by far the better book. Although the CODE BOOK manages to cover both the personal and the quantitative side of the recent revolutions in cryptography, FERMAT'S ENIGMA does not attempt to break into the actual mathematical proofs at all. The result feels like one of those NBC human interest stories that take up airtime from the Olympic Games. The essence is in the math, but we hear instead about the innovators' daily lives.
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