Customer Reviews
Mathematics as you've never seen it before - By: J. Duducu, 21 May 2008 
I was never a fan of maths at school. It did not come easily to me & I failed to see the relevance of trigonometry to my everyday life.
I say this so you realise I am not some sort of science geek who was best friends with a calculator. That's because I found this book absolutely fascinating. It made me laugh 3 timesin the first 20 pages alone!
What Simon Singh does is through Fermat's puzzle describe the history of mathematics from Pythagoras right up to the 1990's. To the layman names like Euclid putin the mind very dull old guys, but they are brought to life with fascinating anecdotes. For example there's the tortured young French mathematician Galois who is dead by 20, his final mathematical theories frantically scribbled down before a dual. Then there's the story that Pythagoras himself drowned a man when he discovered a certain type of number he objected to!
All of this is carefully woven into the story of Andrew Wiles' life long obsession to prove Fermat's last theorem a puzzle that had foxed the whole world for over 350 years!
Everything is explainedin a way that it can be digested by someone who has only a passing interestin maths & as a whole is a remarkable book.
Interesting, exciting, challenging; great read - By: Shad Deen, 20 May 2008 
What I loved the most about this book was it's timeline-structure. Dating back to the Pythagorean ages to the present; I thought this was a brilliant idea. The book is full of interesting stories of what the most famous mathematiciansin the world had experienced during their profession.
The book reaches out to people on many levels:
Women:
The story told about Sophie Germain (bornin 1776), the daughter of a merchant whom outside of her work shared a great passion for Mathematics. However during this age, female mathematicians were frowned upon, & so to study at the Ecole, she took the identity of a former student at the Academy named August Le Blanc. The academy was unaware that he had left Paris & continued to print lecture notes & problems for him. Germain had been submitting the answers to these problems under his name. As her work progressed she had made a remarkable breakthroughin revealing the proof to Fermat's Last Theorem; & with the help of Gauss, one of the most famous mathematicians. They would keepin regular contact regarding mathematical problems until the day where she had submitted this breakthrough to him, she had also revealed that shein fact, is a woman; & received an astonishing response from Gauss's overwhelming reaction (In the best way possible) - Germain had become an icon for female mathematicians.
Mathematicians/People who love maths:
Appendixes locatedin the back of the book where readers with a higher level of mathematical knowledge can read further into the problem with more examples.
Musicians:
mathematical properties of plucking a string to achieve different tones.
Etc.
I remember particularly being shocked about Pythagoras's shame. Where one of his students had discovered the concept of irrational numbers, & as Pythagoras failed to understand this concept, he had sent for the student to be drowned, & claimed irrational numbers as the devil's work; absolutely shameful of such a famous & respected mathematician. Again, this could possibly reach the interest of historians.
There are so many aspects of the book to talk about but I need to keep this short & sweet. Overall the book was a huge success & covered enough of mathematical history to engage the readerin the problem & allow them to enjoy it at the same time. However I did notice that a lot of other significant peoplein mathematics were not mentioned, like Muhammad bin Mūsā al-Khwārizmī - who discovered Algebra mathematics. I also feel that towards the end of the book where the story of Andrew Wiles's steps to solving the theorem was slightly lengthy, & to be completely honest, started to bore me (Hence my 4 star rating).
I highly recommend this book to anyone interestedin mathematics, history, or simply like mysteries & puzzles.
Better than the Da Vinci Code! - By: T. Bartlett, 20 Mar 2008 This is a very well-written book: high-level mathematics made accessible to all. It is a true adventure story - & if you are also interestedin finding out what exactly it is about mathematics that motivates mathematicians - then this is the book to read. Highly recommended.
Fermat's Last Theorem - By: Roger Boyle, 10 Jan 2008 an interesting book about Mathematics & about mathematicians both the famous & not so famous
Dreams come and go, but mathematics is there forever - By: Matt Westwood, 02 Jan 2008 One of my dreams is to understand the proof of this theorem. (Another is to prove the Riemann conjecture, but that's a different history book.) Reading this one didn't get me anywhere nearer this, but on the other hand, neither did the book I got which purports to explain itin some mathematical detail.
What this book *does* give you is an insight into the mathematicians themselves. And on that count it paysin spades. When I read this at the end of the 90's I was considering whether to return to studying maths again after a break of some 15 years or so. After having finished it, I reckoned, yes I would. It's that good.
Singh is an excellent writer & conveys the drama of the story impeccably. Unfortunately, as with all books of this nature, it is not possible to go into the mathematical nitty-gritty behind the sweeping curves that make this theorem a thing of beauty - because it's too abstruse a subject. Even as a practising (amateur) mathematician myself, I can't get my head round the aspects of this particular topic. That can be kind of frustrating - but it won't stop me trying.
This book is as much about the mathematicians as the mathematics itself. They're an entertaining bunch - there's no such thing as a boring mathematician.
Mathematics is next year's new rock & roll.
