Fermat's Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problem
“One of the three books he tells new graduates to read: Liar's Poker, The Professor, the Banker and the Suicide King, Fermat's Enigma.”
Why it is worth your time
Fermat's Enigma is Simon Singh's 1997 account of Fermat's Last Theorem, the claim Pierre de Fermat wrote in a margin in 1637 and which stood unproved until Andrew Wiles completed his proof in 1995. Singh trained as a particle physicist at Cambridge and worked as a BBC producer, and the book grew out of a documentary he made on Wiles. It covers the history of number theory, the mathematicians who failed, and Wiles's 7 years of secret work. Chamath lists it with Liar's Poker and The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King as the 3 books he tells new graduates to read. The common thread is long odds, persistence and a single large bet. He trained as an electrical engineer. It suits readers who want the story without the equations. The caveat is that the math is kept light. Kirkus called it an easy-to-follow summary for non-mathematicians, and Wiles's proof itself is not reproduced.
