- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: Basic Books (Oct 16 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0465017290
- ISBN-13: 978-0465017294
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.2 x 2.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 499 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,363,915 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
The noble idea that advanced mathematics can be made comprehensible to laypeople is tested in this sometimes engaging but ultimately unsatisfying effort. Mathematician and NPR commentator Devlin (The Math Gene) bravely asserts that only "a good high-school knowledge of mathematics" is needed to understand these seven unsolved problems (each with a million-dollar price on its head from the Clay Mathematics Institute), but in truth a Ph.D. would find these thickets of equations daunting. Devlin does a good job with introductory material; his treatment of topology, elementary calculus and simple theorems about prime numbers, for example, are lucid and often fun. But when he works his way up to the eponymous problems he confronts the fact that they are too abstract, too encrusted with jargon, and just too hard. He finally throws in the towel on the Birch and Sinnerton-Dyer Conjecture ("Don't feel bad if you find yourself getting lost... the level of abstraction is simply too great for the nonexpert"), while the chapter on the Hodge Conjecture is so baffling that the second page finds him morosely conceding that "the wise strategy might be to give up." Nor does Devlin make a compelling case for the real-world importance of many of these problems, rarely going beyond vague assurances that solving them "would almost certainly involve new ideas that will... have other uses." Sadly, this quixotic book ends up proving that high-level mathematics is beyond the reach of all but the experts.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-In May, 2000, the Clay Mathematics Institute posted a million-dollar prize to anyone able to solve any of what it considered the seven most important mathematical problems of the 21st century. They were chosen not for theoretical beauty alone, but because many of them deal with concepts in fields like physics, computer science, and engineering, and exist because practitioners in those fields are already using theoretical or practical design solutions that have not been mathematically proven. Devlin, "The Math Guy" from NPR's Weekend Edition, does a good job explaining the background of the problems and why theoretical mathematics as a discipline should matter to a general audience. Each problem has a chapter of its own and is given a treatment that, where applicable, extends back to the ancient Greeks. A passing knowledge of mathematics is important for taking in Devlin's work but a major in the subject is not, and this book should satisfy anyone looking for a layman's guide to modern theoretical mathematics. Or hoping to win a million dollars.
Sheryl Fowler, Chantilly Regional Library, VA
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Sheryl Fowler, Chantilly Regional Library, VA
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Pedantic,
By
This review is from: The Millennium Problems 1 (Hardcover)
This book is more pedantic than I thought it would be. Being a smallish book and a smaller audience, it is understandable that the mathematical details are trimmed down (almost excised, you might say). Still, there is too much history and not enough details. Too often the author says that it may be above the reader's level. Overall, I was disappointed, but it was not a waste.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Oddly uneven exposition....,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Millennium Problems 1 (Hardcover)
Someone may want to point out to Mr Devlin that the kind of person who picks up this book and who is willing to plough through it probably has a high level of native intelligence (even if she does not have an extensive math background) and the repeated and protracted "apologies" for the high level of abstraction of the mathematics which these problems require is both annoying and patronizing. I would guess that a bright 15 or 16 year old would have made that assumption before opening the front cover. It's simply unnecessary. And amounts to filler after a while.Now to the math. A reader having an extensive math background (say college major or above) will find little real math of interest here. Be prepared to face a page and a half explanation of the amazing growth in magnitude of factorials. There is astoundingly some algebra done wrong here (see page 192). The research in some of the chapters appears to have been done hastily and the exposition is not clear (P vs NP Problem for example). There are factual errors, from the minor (the year of Isaac Newton's birth) to Mr Devlin having Daniel Bernoulli and Euler working in the 19th century (p. 132; it was the eighteenth). This gives the feel of a book which has been written hastily and one wonders if it was reviewed by another mathematician before publication. In fairness, the description of most of the problems is deftly handled and will draw the interest of most readers. Please give the climbing the mountain to view the math landscape analogy a rest. The book is ridiculously overpriced at US $16.00 and Canadian $25.00.
4.0 out of 5 stars
It's Not An "Idiot's Guide to the Millenium Problems",
By
This review is from: The Millennium Problems 1 (Hardcover)
Let's be frank: most people have a better chance of winning $1M at the state lottery than by proving any of these "millennium problems". Keith Devlin does a good job of explaining why. A little reverse psychology here and there ("...if you find the going too hard, then the wise strategy might be to give up.") just makes us want to push on toward the more difficult problems. The going isn't too hard thanks to Devlin's expository ability, but alas, I think this will be true only for aficionados of mathematics and physics. In his columns for the Mathematical Association of America, Keith has always had in mind a varied audience of readers. But how can he hope to communicate to the non-mathematician when so much meaning resides in the equations that appear throughout the book? Still, his pedagogy prevents this from becoming "The Idiot's Guide to the Millennium Problems". (I suppose it'll appear real soon.) Devlin hints at a disturbing idea. Will cutting edge problems become so abstruse some day that it will take the best minds all the fruitful years of their lives just to arrive at a position of comprehension? What then, mathematical AI?
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