About this item
It is one of the wonders of mathematics that for every problem mathematicians solve another awaits to perplex and galvanize them Some of these problems are new while others have puzzled and bewitched thinkers across the ages Such challenges offer a tantalizing glimpse of the fields unlimited potential and keep mathematicians looking toward the horizons of intellectual possibilityIn Visions of Infinity celebrated mathematician Ian Stewart provides a fascinating overview of the most formidable problems mathematicians have vanquished and those that vex them still He explains why these problems exist what drives mathematicians to solve them and why their efforts matter in the context of science as a whole The three-century effort to prove Fermats last theoremfirst posited in and finally solved by Andrew Wiles in led to the creation of algebraic number theory and complex analysis The Poincar conjecture which was cracked in by the eccentric genius Grigori Perelman has become fundamental to mathematicians understanding of three-dimensional shapes But while mathematicians have made enormous advances in recent years some problems continue to baffle us Indeed the Riemann hypothesis which Stewart refers to as the Holy Grail of pure mathematics and the PNP problem which straddles mathematics and computer science could easily remain unproved for another hundred yearsAn approachable and illuminating history of mathematics as told through fourteen of its greatest problems Visions of Infinity reveals how mathematicians the world over are rising to the challenges set by their predecessorsand how the enigmas of the past inevitably surrender to the powerful techniques of the present.
About the Author
Ian Nicholas Stewart FRS (born 24 September 1945) is a professor of mathematics at the University of Warwick, England, and a widely known popular-science and science-fiction writer. He is the first recipient of the Christopher Zeeman Medal, awarded jointly by the LMS and the IMA for his work on promoting mathematics.
