Book Review: Fermat’s last theorem by Simon Singh

I picked this book up at a used books’ store from Prithvi Theatre in Bombay, three years ago. To the best of my memory, I emptied my wallet at the bookstore, buying several old books (in decent condition)- most of which I haven’t read yet. None of this is relevant to my review of the book but it is sometimes interesting for me to muse on how the fates conspired so that I could get to read a particular book.

'Fermat’s last theorem' is the story of how Fermat’s deceptively simple looking problem, i.e. that xⁿ + yⁿ = zⁿ has no solutions for n>2, was proven. Though the book deals with advanced mathematics, it is written in a simple language and Singh has taken adequate pains to introduce concepts as if he were speaking to a five year old. It was interesting for me to know the history behind the maths I had read in high school as also read how simple logic had become potent weapons to solve complex theorems.

Fermat was an imp. He was a closet mathematician- a government servant who would write unintelligible solutions to mathematical problems in the margins of his copy of "Arithmetica". (In fact, were it not for his son, who published his musings, we might have never known what a great mathematical mind Fermat was.) True to his nature, Fermat wrote “ I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which this margin is too narrow to contain.” mischievously instead of providing the actual proof. And thereafter, it stood unsolved, for three hundred and fifty plus years.

Singh takes one through centuries of mathematical logic – pieces of which were discovered over time – all of which came together to help Andrew Wiles solve the theorem finally in the 90’s. Even though the book is on mathematics, it is as good a page turner as a novel or a historical biography. I was hooked till the very end and even read up the annexures which had proofs of various mathematical theorems.

What intrigues me, correction – haunts me – to this day is how Fermat originally proved the theorem. Wiles’ solution relies heavily on mathematics developed only in the aftermath of World War 2 by two Japanese mathematicians – which couldn’t have been known to Fermat possibly 300 years ago.

Sublime read.