Last Problem
Published on 8. May 2020
216 pages
978-1-83974-452-5 (ISBN)
Description
What Eric Temple Bell calls "e;The Last Problem"e; 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. 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 civilization, and a history of our civilization'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.-Print ed.
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Content
- Intro
- 1 - Prospectus: Unfinished Business
- 2 - The Far Beginnings: Babylon and Egypt
- 1. Babylon
- 2. Egypt
- 3 - Philosophical Interlude
- 4 - Alexander's Contribution
- 5 - Cleopatra's Gift
- 6 - From Euclid to Hypatia
- 7 - Dating-Collapse-Recovery
- 1. Dating: Pythagoras, Diophantus
- 2. Collapse
- 3. Recovery
- 8 - The Last Euclidean: Bachet (1581-1638)
- 9 - Mathematician and Jurist-Fermat
- 10 - The Catalyst: Mersenne (1588-1648)
- 11 - Friends and Others
- 1. Wallis (1616-1703)
- 2. Digby (1603-1665)
- 3. Brouncker (1620?-1684)
- 4. Frénicle (1605-1675)
- 5. Carcavi (?-1684)
- 6. Huygens (1629-1695)
- 7. Roberval (1602-1675)
- 8. Pell (1610-1685)
- 9. Van Schooten (?-1661)
- 12 - From the Correspondence of Fermat
- 13 - An Age to Remember
- 14 - The Jurist
- 15 - Aftermath (A final note by D. H. Lehmer)
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
