Book Review: Fermat's Last Theorem-Simon Singh
"God exists because mathematics is consistent and we know that the devil exists because we cannot prove the consistency." -- Andre Weil
This is my second ever novel which I have read with great interest after Sudha Murthy’s autobiography. Olympiad-style math problems spellbind me and it’s natural to know about the last theorem. I watched a video years back by Numberphile where Simon said things about the theorem and this book was mentioned in it. Then I ordered it about a month back. And believe me, you will love it provided that you tend to mathematics as an art and not a subject. I would put this novel into the genre of suspense thriller and you will agree with me if you read it for yourself.
The fact that Fermat’s last theorem amuses me lies in its simplicity and in its innocence. Just look at the poor kid’s face, it seems to put a spell on you where you believe that it’s solvable even by a dumbass. But let me tell you “Life is Unfair”.
The characters in the realm of the last theorem are very diverse and there is a suspicious character which is the devil himself. I like the way Simon narrates the whole voyage in chronological order where different ingenious ideas popped up. I’ll give a digest of the whole sail. It all starts with Fermat himself when he scribbles one of the most controversial sentences in history on the margin of Diophantus’s book. This problem took the juice out of the greatest mind for ages. Fermat proved the theorem for n=4 using infinite descent which he was proud of. Then next comes the Euler who solves for n=3, and is left for many decades with very little progress. He also speaks about Gauss and Sophie Germain who as a woman of the 16th century tackled the stereotypical society using a fake identity and worked in secrecy. Many women were slaughtered for doing math which was thought to be men’s property. Several math professors such as Kummer were busy correcting the proofs. Gödel was one of those guys who is rebellious and doesn’t prefer to go behind the crowd, he broke the feelings of mathematicians like Hilbert by proposing his Incompleteness Theorem which is best explained by the liar paradox. He was a sigma dude. I like this guy, you can relate him to Subramanian Swamy if you keep knowledge of politics. Simon also mentions Hardy and the young genius Évariste Galois and his attempts of solving the unknown. Entering the 20th century the world witnessed one of the greatest pairs that are Taniyama-Shimura. Bud unfortunately Taniyama suffered from depression leading to his death. Lastly, the arrival of the paladin blew away mathematicians’ grieves and solved Fermat’s theorem which had remained unsolved for 358 long years.
I really loved every single character in the novel and this hits you differently provided you love and admire number theory. Also not to mention, the language and the vocabulary are not very unfathomable, which is a good point and be aware this novel is addictive. I even took this book to the toilet. Don’t worry even if you are alien to mathematics, you will like and appreciate the work. I look forward to reviewing more math and philosophical books. Most probably I will be buying George Pólya book, in the coming week or so and will review that as well. Do recommend books on philosophical math ideas like paradoxes and I would love to devour those!
Nice! looking forward to read this book!!!
Yup I really recommend this book to everyone it's really good