杏吧原创

The Origins of Virtue by Matt Ridley, Viking, 拢20, ISBN 0 670 86357 2

THE dramatic announcement in June 1993 by Andrew Wiles of Princeton University that he had proved Fermat鈥檚 last theorem led to a great flurry of activity in every quarter of the mathematical community.

The claim that the equation xⁿ + yⁿ = zⁿ has no solutions with x, y and z all positive integers and n an integer greater than 2 was made by the French mathematician Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665) in the margin of a book. Unfortunately, Fermat discovered that the margin was 鈥渢oo small鈥� for his proof.

I turned to Amir Aczel鈥檚 Fermat鈥檚 Last Theorem (Four Walls Eight Windows, $18, ISBN 1 56858 077 0) hoping to find a quick answer to the incessant requests for an explanation of FLT, maybe an account of the role of FLT in the development of modern number theory, or even some account of the ideas in the proof itself. Sadly, these hopes went entirely unfulfilled. Aczel gives a historical account, drawing on Eric Temple Bell鈥檚 60-year-old and highly romanticised work for the period up to 1930, although he allows himself even more freedom in historical dramatisations than Bell did.

Perhaps the greatest disappointment came in what should have been the most dramatic part of the book-the final proof. The account of Wiles鈥檚 personal struggle is competent. But Aczel buries his discussion of Wiles鈥檚 work in an already well-rehearsed, highly partisan account of a controversy over the apportionment of the credit for a key conjecture involved in the proof. Almost no space is allocated to the mathematics.

I put the book down with a great sense of disappointment. It is not hard to generate excitement by focusing on personal controversy and conflict, but trickier to give the reader a flavour of the subject itself. Aczel has chosen the easy and unrewarding path.