Fermat's Enigma

A few months back I read a book called ‘Fermat’s Enigma’ by Simon Singh. For the uninitiated, Pierre de Fermat was one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. The book describes the quest to solve the world’s oldest mathematical problem called Fermat’s Last Theorem. It states:

It is impossible to separate any power higher than the second into two like powers

In other words,

If an integer n is greater than 2, then the equation a^n + b^n = c^n has no solutions in non-zero integers a, b, and c

Though this seems very apparent and simple it took mathematicians more than 350 years to prove this! This was called the last theorem because all the other theorems of Fermat were proved except for this one which went on to become the greatest mathematical challenge ever. The man who finally proved it is Andrew Wiles, a British mathematician and a professor at Princeton University. Wiles claims that it was his childhood dream to prove this theorem.

I would urge people, who have the slightest bit of interest in mathematics, to get a copy of the book and read it. It is a very simple account of everything that went on to prove the theorem without ever becoming a nerd fest. For people who are not interested in mathematics this book can serve as an account of someone who went on to live his childhood dream. Go get it!