Fermat's Last Theorem: the story of a riddle that confounded the world’s greatest minds for 358 years
By, Singh Simon
Publisher: Fourth Estate
Class No.: 512.74 SIN
Accession No.: 014248
Year: 2002
Pages: 340 p.

Of the week: 25th May. 2009 to 30th May. 2009

When Cambridge mathematician Andrew Wiles announced a solution for Fermat's last theorem in 1993, it electrified the world of mathematics. After a flaw was discovered in the proof, Wiles had to work for another year--he had already laboured in solitude for seven years--to establish that he had solved the 350-year-old problem. Simon Singh's book is a lively, comprehensible explanation of Wiles's work and of the colourful history that has build up around Fermat's last theorem over the years. The book contains some problems that offer a taste for the maths, but it also includes limericks to give a feeling for the quirkier side of mathematicians.