N° 3166
This tells a fascinating tale spanning more than 350 years of investigation into the greatest riddle in mathematics. Whether Fermat himself ever did have a proof of his famous last theorem we will never know; but the saga of the many attempts to find a proof, and the ultimate success of Andrew Wiles in the 1990s, makes absorbing reading. In 1993, Wiles, a Cambridge mathematician, electrified the world of mathematics - and appeared in the news worldwide - when he announced he had solved the eponymous theorem. To do this he had worked alone for seven years; when his proof was found to have a flaw, he had to devote another year to it. Singh's book is respectful of the maths, but also offers a colourful history of the theorem and the personalities of the mathematicians involved in it.
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