Fermat's Last Theorem

This popular history follows the problem Pierre de Fermat noted in the seventeenth century - that no three positive integers satisfy a^n + b^n = c^n for n greater than 2 - and the centuries of attempts to prove it. Singh explains the mathematical lineage from Greek number theory through Euler, Sophie Germain, Kummer, and the modern machinery of elliptic curves and modular forms. The later chapters reconstruct Andrew Wiles's years of solitary work, the gap found in his first proof, and the repair that completed the argument. The book is explanatory narrative for non-specialists, not a textbook of the proof itself.

Quarter-bound in blue cloth with Modigliani paper sides printed with a colour pattern. RTed slipcase.