Recull dels textos de les conferències donades al Curso de Verano que, sota el títol "400 años de matemáticas en torno al último teorema de Fermat" va organitzar la Universidad Complutense de Madrid a El Escorial (Madrid), durant el mes d'agost de 1994.
Desde los anónimos babilonios y agrimensores egipcios, pasando por Pitágoras y sus seguidores, Arquímedes y Diofanto, hasta llegar al mundo árabe, el autor traza el camino que llevó a la solución del último teorema de Fermat, una ruta llena de intrigas y falsas atribuciones
Introducing the Collins Modern Classics, a series featuring some of the most significant books of recent times, books that shed light on the human experience - classics which will endure for generations to come.
In 1995, Andrew Wiles completed a proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. Although this was certainly a great mathematical feat, one shouldn't dismiss earlier attempts made by mathematicians and clever amateurs to solve the problem. In this book, aimed at amateurs curious about the history of the subject, the author restricts his attention exclusively to elementary methods that have produced rich results.
The final work from the brightest star in science fiction’s galaxy. Arthur C Clarke, who predicted the advent of communication satellites and author of 2001: A Space Odyssey completes a lifetime career in science fiction with a masterwork.
Lecture I The Early History of Fermat's Last Theorem.- 1 The Problem.- 2 Early Attempts.- 3 Kummer's Monumental Theorem.- 4 Regular Primes.- 5 Kummer's Work on Irregular Prime Exponents.- 6 Other Relevant Results.- 7 The Golden Medal and the Wolfskehl Prize.- Lecture II Recent Results.- 1 Stating the Results.- 2 Explanations.- Lecture III B.K. = Before Kummer.- 1 The Pythagorean Equation.- 2 The Biquadratic Equation.- 3 The Cubic Equation.- 4 The Quintic Equation.- 5 Fermat's Equation of Degree Seven.- Lecture IV The Naïve Approach.- 1 The Relations of Barlow and Abel.- 2 Sophie Germain.- 3 Co.
"As gripping as a good thriller." --The Washington Post Unpack the science of secrecy and discover the methods behind cryptography--the encoding and decoding of information--in this clear and easy-to-understand young adult adaptation of the national bestseller that's perfect for this age of WikiLeaks, the Sony hack, and other events that reveal the extent to which our technology is never quite as secure as we want to believe. Coders and codebreakers alike will be fascinated by history's most mesmerizing stories of intrigue and cunning--from Julius Caesar and his Caeser cipher to the Allies' use of the Enigma machine to decode German messages during World War II. Accessible, compelling, and timely, The Code Book is sure to make readers see the past--and the future--in a whole new way. "Singh's power of explaining complex ideas is as dazzling as ever." --The Guardian
"This collection of essays by artists and mathematicians continues the discussion of the connections between art and mathematics begun in the widely read first volume of The Visual Mind in 1993."--BOOK JACKET.