The Last Problem
NZD$59.95
inc GSTWhat Eric Temple Bell calls the last problem is the problem of proving 'Fermat's Last Theorem', which Fermat wrote in the margin of a book almost 350 years ago. The original text of The Last Problem traced the problem from 2000 BC to 17th century France. Along the way we learn quite a bit about history, and just as much about mathematics. Underwood Dudley's notes bring us up-to-date on recent attempts to solve the problem - for the latest printing, he has added a three page addendum about its recent proof by Andrew Wiles. This book fits no categories. It is not a book of mathematics: it is a biography of a famous problem. Pages go by without an equation appearing. It is both a history of number theory and its place in our civilisation, and a history of our civilisation's relationship with mathematics. This rich and varied, wide-ranging book, written with force and vigor by someone with a distinctive style and point of view will provide hours of enjoyable reading for anyone interested in mathematics.
- Fermat's theorem is ever popular and is more in the news since it's been proved
- Bell is very famous author
- Updated by Underwood Dudley, another well-known MAA author
- For the latest printing, Dudley has added a three page addendum about its recent proof by Andrew Wiles
Product details
October 1998Paperback
9780883854518
332 pages
210 × 140 × 18 mm
0.37kg
This item is not supplied by Cambridge University Press in your region. Please contact Mathematical Association of America for availability.
Table of Contents
- 1. Prospectus: unfinished business
- 2. The far beginnings: Babylon and Egypt
- 3. Philosophical interlude
- 4. Alexander's contribution
- 5. Cleopatra's gift
- 6. From Euclid to Hypatia
- 7. Dating - collapse - recovery
- 8. The last Euclidean: Bachet (1581–1638)
- 9. Mathematician and jurist - Fermat
- 10. The catalyst: Mersenne (1588–1648)
- 11. Friends and others
- 12. From the correspondence of Fermat
- 13. An age to remember
- 14. The jurist
- 15. Aftermath.
