Poincare's Prize: The Hundred-Year Quest to Solve One of Math's Greatest Puzzles

by George G. Szpiro

Overview

The amazing story of one of the greatest math problems of all time and the reclusive genius who solved it

In the tradition of Fermat’s Enigma and Prime Obsession, George Szpiro brings to life the giants of mathematics who struggled to prove a theorem for a century and the mysterious man from St. Petersburg, Grigory Perelman, who fi nally accomplished the impossible. In 1904 Henri Poincaré developed the Poincaré Conjecture, an attempt to understand higher-dimensional space and possibly the shape of the universe. The problem was he couldn’t prove it. A century later it was named a Millennium Prize problem, one of the seven hardest problems we can imagine. Now this holy grail of mathematics has been found.

Accessibly interweaving history and math, Szpiro captures the passion, frustration, and excitement of the hunt, and provides a fascinating portrait of a contemporary noble-genius.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781440634284
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/29/2008
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	469 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

George G. Szpiro is a mathematician and prizewinning journalist with an MBA from Stanford and a Ph.D. in mathematical economics from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His previous book, Kepler's Conjecture, was published in five languages to international critical acclaim.

Editorial Reviews

[Szpiro] turns the abstract mathematics of spheres into a lucid, lovely romantic odyssey. (Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind)

Sylvia Nasar

A wonderful history of a great breakthrough. (Bud Mishra, professor, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University)

Bud Mishra

?[Szpiro] turns the abstract mathematics of spheres into a lucid, lovely romantic odyssey.?
?Sylvia Nasar, author of "A Beautiful Mind"

?A wonderful history of a great breakthrough.?
?Bud Mishra, professor, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University



a[Szpiro] turns the abstract mathematics of spheres into a lucid, lovely romantic odyssey.a
aSylvia Nasar, author of "A Beautiful Mind"
aA wonderful history of a great breakthrough.a
aBud Mishra, professor, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University

From the Publisher