Home Authors Books Subjects Events Software Features Links Newsletter Gifts Blog Write Review What's New

Simon Singh - Books

• Fermat's Last Theorem
• The Code Book
• Big Bang

Fermat's Last Theorem (Fermat's Enigma)

Just as the US publishers of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone reckoned the US public couldn't cope with the word 'philosopher' and changed the title, this is called Fermat's Enigma in the US (it could also be because of another book of the same name by Amir Aczel). But crazy assumptions from publishers apart, it's the superb story of a bizarre little problem that no one could solve until the ever-wily mathematician Fermat scribbled in a margin that he had a wonderful solution, only there wasn't room to write it down.

Fermat may well have been boasting, but it threw down a gauntlet to hundreds of mathematicians who were to follow until it was finally achieved in the 20th century. Don't worry if the maths doesn't interest you - the story will, both in its historical context and in the insight into the work and nature of modern mathematicians.

In some ways the star of the book is Andrew Wiles, the British Mathematician who pretty well single-handedly cracked the problem with an unusual level of secrecy, rather than the typical sharing approach of the profession. But equally it's Fermat himself.

Whether or not Fermat actually had a solution is a moot point - but he certainly didn't have Wiles' complex approach. In fact it seems so difficult to come up with a straightforward solution to this problem that Fermat has to be more than a little doubted.

Like all the best popular science books - and this certainly is one of the best - it brings in a whole range of extras historically and mathematically to add to the fascinating cast. What can I say? Buy it!

Also in hardback:                                           Also in audio:

"Singh judges to perfection the level of detail needed to grasp the magnitude of Wiles's achievement - the fascination of pure mathematics has never been more effectively conveyed to the general readership." Daily Telegraph

"Number theory is one of the most abstruse parts of mathematics. But Simon Singh succeeds in telling perhaps its most famous story. Without technicalities, he gets across the intellectual excitement of the chase to crack Fermat's last theorem. This is remarkable if you consider that only a handful of mathematicians understood all the techniques that Andrew Wiles, a British mathematician, used to solve the puzzle, 360 years or so after Pierre de Fermat had scribbled in a book margin that he had an ingenious proof. Mr Singh traces previous attempts to prove the conjecture, leading up to Mr Wiles's eight-year near-solitary assault, while introducing number theory's elegant mysteries and neatly sketching the lives of some of its best practitioners." Economist

"Singh has written a compelling account of the human achievement. Death, suicides, a duel over a woman, they're all here - along with the agonising story of how Wiles discovered that his celebrated 'proof' was faulty, and how he struggled to find the correct solution that would save his tarnished reputation." Focus

"This is probably the best popular account of a scientific topic I have ever read." Irish Times

"It is a magnificent story, one told with infectious enthusiasm. If you enjoyed Dava Sobel's Longitude, you will enjoy this." Evening Standard

"This is an unambiguously terrific book. There are enough mind-boggling stories in here to inspire three good novels, and it can be understood by anyone with a grade C or better in maths O-level. A qualification, I hardly need add, that Pierre de Fermat himself did not even posses." Guardian

"To read it [Fermat's Last Theorem] is to realise that there is a world of beauty and intellectual challenge that is denied to 99.9 per cent of us who are not high-level mathematicians. For opening the window to that world even partially, Singh deserves congratulation." The Times

"Singh is a populariser of enormous talent, evincing infectious passion for the subject. His approach to the historical pedigree of the problem is novelistically readable, but a tasty clutch of appendices enable the adventurous reader to get to grips with important concepts in induction, game theory, topology and the foundations of arithmetic." Guardian

Far from being a dry textbook it reads like the chronicle of an obsessive love affair. It has the classic ingredients that Hollywood would recognise.  The Daily Mail

Vividly recounted...I strongly recommend this book to anyone wishing to catch a glimpse of what is one of the most important and ill-understood, but oldest, cultural activities of humanity...an excellent and very worthwhile account of one of the most dramatic and moving events of the century. The New York Times Book Review

How great a riddle was Fermat's last theorem? The exploration of space, the splitting of the atom, the discovery of DNA--unthinkable in Fermat's time--all were achieved while his Pythagorean proof still remained elusive...Though [Singh] may not ask us to bring too much algebra to the table, he does expect us to appreciate a good detective story. The Boston Sunday Globe

It is hard to imagine a more informative or gripping account of...this centuries-long drama of ingenious failures, crushed hopes, fatal duels, and suicides. The Wall Street Journal

[Singh] writes with graceful knowledgeability of the esoteric and esthetic appeal of mathematics through the ages, and especially of the mystifying behavior of numbers. The New York Times

[Singh] has done an admirable job with an extremely difficult subject. He has also done mathematics a great service by conveying the passion and drama that have carried Fermat's Last Theorem aloft as the most celebrated mathematics problem of the last four centuries. American Mathematical Society

The amazing achievement of Singh's book is that it actually makes the logic of the modern proof understandable to the nonspecialist...More important, Singh shows why it is significant that this problem should have been solved. The Christian Science Monitor

• Fermat's Last Theorem
• The Code Book

The Code Book

Not in quite the same class as Singh's definitive Fermat's Last Theorem, but still a fascinating survey of the history of code making from the earliest days, through the wartime Enigma machines to the present day complexity of 128 bit encryption.

The great thing about the book is probably not the mathematical complexity of modern codes and ciphers but the very human studies of the use and need to transmit secret messages, from the ancient Greeks writing on a messengers bald head, then waiting for the hair to regrow, through the cipher that doomed Mary Queen of Scots to the race to crack the World War II Enigma machines.

One of Simon Singh's great strengths is being able to get across complex principles in a way that the everyday reader doesn't find intimidating. This shines through in The Code Book I don't know if recent editions have the rather cringe-making 'cipher challenge' in the back - we can but hope this has disappeared by now - but this shouldn't put anyone off.

Whatever your mathematical level or inclination, this book is likely to have something to offer.

Also in hardback:   

• "The Code Book mixes story-telling with commendably lucid explanations of everything from the cracking of the 'unbreakable' Vigenere cipher in the nineteenth century to the modern developments of public-key and quantum cryptography... At a time when cryptography is assuming increasing significance, his book provides a timely and entertaining summary of the subject." Economist

  "The new book possesses all the qualities of its predecessor. It's lucidly written, taking just as long as it needs to explain some abstruse problem but not so long as to make one glance wistfully ahead of the page one is reading." Evening Standard

  "You couldn't wish for a better guide than Singh. As he demonstrated in his last book, Fermat's Last Theorem, he has the priceless knack of being able to strip away jargon and describe mathematical processes in something so akin to clear English that even your average non-scientific duffer is able to convince himself that he understands it." Mail on Sunday

  "Anyone who can navigate the reader through the boggling mathematics of Vigenere's Square, or the familiar but still seldom understood story of the Enigma, has a special talent as a communicator. Whatever else, this book requires no additional decoding." Sunday Herald

  "Singh's power of explaining complex ideas is as dazzling as ever, and as an amusing extra stunt the book contains a cipher challenge...The Code Book will fascinate anyone who, like me, used to treasure their Secret Agent Pen as a child, as well as devotees of spy thrillers, crossword enthusiasts, and paranoiacs of all persuasions." Steven Poole, Guardian

  "It is hard to imagine a more enthralling book." Independent

  "Simon Singh, author of Fermat's Last Theorem has succeeded in The Code Book in making codes and ciphers intelligible to the layman. The heroes of Singh's absorbing account are code-breakers, 'linguistic alchemists', whose obsessive pursuit of cryptography through the ages has transformed the course of history." Observer

  His exposition is especially effective at putting the reader in the code breaker's shoes... The New York Times Book Review

  Who can resist a book on secret writing? Simon Singh, author of the bestseller Fermat's Enigma (a.k.a Fermat's Last Theorem), now chronicles the classic battle between codemakers and codebreakers. Mr Singh spins tales of cryptic intrigue in every chapter. The Wall Street Journal

  My only regret is that this great book has come far too late. If only someone had given it to me when I was 10, my secret plans for world playground domination might never have been foiled. Bah.  The Observer
  
  This is a book for those like me who enjoy gorging on facts, whether they're slabs or nuggets.  The Evening Standard

  The book is full of fascinating case histories covering the development and practical use of cryptography. The Mail on Sunday

  In Singh's expert hands, cryptography decodes as an awe-inspiring and mind-expanding story of scientific breakthrough and high drama. Publisher's Weekly, US

  Singh has created an authoritative, and engrossing read which both explains and humanises the subject... This intelligent, exciting book takes its drive from a simple premise - that nothing is as exciting as a secret. Scotland on Sunday

   

  Big Bang

  The cover of this big book is rather disconcerting. It looks like a pack of washing powder. And like all the best washing powder, it is splashed with a remarkable claim: "The most important scientific discovery of all time and why you need to know about it."

  All I can say about that is don't be put off by it! It's very hard to see anything in cosmology could ever be "the most important discovery", as to be honest it's not going to do an awful lot to change anyone's life. It may well be the most fundamental discovery - and it's certainly one of the most fascinating, but surely not most important. And for that matter, do we really need to know about it? Well, no. But that's not the point of popular science. It's about the delight of discovery, the wonder of a very wonderful universe - in terms of need-to-know it's in the "doesn't amount to a hill of beans" class.

  HOWEVER this is all the packaging, and I stress that you shouldn't let it put you off the contents, because this is one of the best popular science books of the year. It's page-turning readable, it's enjoyable and it is pitched just right to provide plenty of knowledge and that essential wonder without baffling. Simon Singh has confirmed his position as one of the top science popularisers alive.

  The aim of the book is to help us understand what the Big Bang is all about. Singh takes the reader back to the earliest theories of the universe and gradually builds to the present day with plenty of enjoyable excursions. Just occasionally the historical ventures don't feel quite right - Galileo, for instance, is so well documented that a pocket biography feels uncomfortably restrictive and there's something odd about the description of how Einstein came to conceive of Special Relativity, but these are tiny niggles. It looks like it's going to be too long as well, but this is an illusion. They've used quite big print, unusually well spaced, perhaps because a "big" subject needed a big book or even (God help us) because the success of Bryson's doorstop of a book has started a trend towards big fat popular science.

  It's a delight to find out more about the renegade cosmologist Fred Hoyle, both as a person and as a genius. Hoyle's outspoken views (a Yorkshireman - need we say more) and refreshing tendency to come out with original and exciting ideas without too much concern about whether or not they are right have tended to obscure what a big contribution he made to the understanding of stellar formation of the elements and cosmology, despite backing the wrong horse on the Big Bang versus Steady State controversy.

  Singh leads us beautifully through the Big Bang's transit from vague theory to one that was almost universally (sorry) accepted, finishing with the impact of the cosmic background radiation studies, particularly the results from the COBE satellite. The supporters of the alternative Steady State theory would throw up one last alternative, but there was little enthusiasm for it: Big Bang had won.

  One last thought - if you're reading it in public, you might like to reassure everyone in a loud voice "it's about the origin's of the universe" - or the title might make them suspect you of reading something a little less salubrious. But whatever you do, read it - this is a great popular science book from a master of the craft. If it whets your appetite and you want to read further on the origins of the universe and matter, consider going on to Marcus Chown's excellent cosmological duo, Afterglow of Creation and the Magic Furnace.

  Also in paperback from Summer 2005:

   

• Fermat's Last Theorem
• The Code Book
• Big Bang

DISCLAIMERS

This site has no connection with Popular Science magazine or other sites and publications with a similar name.

Much of the content of this site is written by popular science writers or friends of popular science writers. Inevitably many of the reviews in such a small community are written by or about someone we know. We always aim to be impartial in our reviews, but there is a connection which we need make clear, as there is no intention to deceive. The content of any review or article is solely the opinion of the author and should not be read or understood on any other basis. The site exists to promote popular science writing and popular science authors and for this reason should be considered promotional material, just as the editorial reviews in an online bookshop or the blurb on the back of a book should be considered promotional.

The website should not be eaten or used where it can come into contact with water.

Disagree with our review? Want to comment on a feature? Contact us at info@ popularscience.co.uk - have your say!

Part of the  site

Copyright © Creativity Unleashed Limited 2005
Last update 05 June 2007