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Fermat's Last Theorem In Fiction
The problem in number theory known as " Fermat's Last Theorem" has repeatedly received attention in fiction and popular culture. It was proved by Andrew Wiles in 1994. Prose fiction *The theorem plays a key role in the 1948 mystery novel Murder by Mathematics' by Hector Hawton. *Arthur Porges' short story "The Devil and Simon Flagg" features a mathematician who bargains with the Devil that the latter cannot produce a proof of Fermat's Last Theorem within twenty-four hours. The devil is not successful and is last seen beginning a collaboration with the hero. The story was first published in 1954 in '' The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction''. *In Douglas Hofstadter's 1979 book ''Gödel, Escher, Bach'', the statement, "I have discovered a truly remarkable proof of this theorem which this margin is too small to contain" is repeatedly rephrased and satirized, including a pun on "fermata". *In Robert Forward's 1984/1985 science fiction novel ''Rocheworld'', Fermat's Last Theorem i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Number Theory
Number theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic function, integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) said, "Mathematics is the queen of the sciences—and number theory is the queen of mathematics."German original: "Die Mathematik ist die Königin der Wissenschaften, und die Arithmetik ist die Königin der Mathematik." Number theorists study prime numbers as well as the properties of mathematical objects made out of integers (for example, rational numbers) or defined as generalizations of the integers (for example, algebraic integers). Integers can be considered either in themselves or as solutions to equations (Diophantine geometry). Questions in number theory are often best understood through the study of Complex analysis, analytical objects (for example, the Riemann zeta function) that encode properties of the integers, primes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Oxford Murders (novel)
''The Oxford Murders'' ( es, Crímenes imperceptibles; ''Imperceptible Crimes'') is a novel by the Argentine author Guillermo Martínez, first published in 2003. It was translated into English in 2005 by Sonia Soto. The story tells about a professor of logic, who, along with a graduate student, investigates a series of bizarre, mathematically-based murders in Oxford, England. Plot introduction In this thriller, mathematical symbols are the key to a mysterious sequence of murders. Each new death that occurs is accompanied by a different mathematical shape, starting with a circle. This pure mathematical form heralds the death of Mrs Eagleton, the landlady of a young Argentine mathematician who narrates the story. It appears that the serial killer can be stopped only if somebody can decode the next symbol in the sequence. The mathematics graduate is joined by the leading Oxford logician Arthur Seldom on the quest to solve the cryptic clues. The book explains how difficult it can be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frederik Pohl
Frederik George Pohl Jr. (; November 26, 1919 – September 2, 2013) was an American science-fiction writer, editor, and fan, with a career spanning nearly 75 years—from his first published work, the 1937 poem "Elegy to a Dead Satellite: Luna", to the 2011 novel ''All the Lives He Led''. From about 1959 until 1969, Pohl edited '' Galaxy'' and its sister magazine '' If''; the latter won three successive annual Hugo Awards as the year's best professional magazine. His 1977 novel '' Gateway'' won four "year's best novel" awards: the Hugo voted by convention participants, the Locus voted by magazine subscribers, the Nebula voted by American science-fiction writers, and the juried academic John W. Campbell Memorial Award. He won the Campbell Memorial Award again for the 1984 collection of novellas ''The Years of the City'', one of two repeat winners during the first 40 years. For his 1979 novel ''Jem'', Pohl won a U.S. National Book Award in the one-year category Science ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur C
Arthur is a common male given name of Brythonic origin. Its popularity derives from it being the name of the legendary hero King Arthur. The etymology is disputed. It may derive from the Celtic ''Artos'' meaning “Bear”. Another theory, more widely believed, is that the name is derived from the Roman clan '' Artorius'' who lived in Roman Britain for centuries. A common spelling variant used in many Slavic, Romance, and Germanic languages is Artur. In Spanish and Italian it is Arturo. Etymology The earliest datable attestation of the name Arthur is in the early 9th century Welsh-Latin text ''Historia Brittonum'', where it refers to a circa 5th to 6th-century Briton general who fought against the invading Saxons, and who later gave rise to the famous King Arthur of medieval legend and literature. A possible earlier mention of the same man is to be found in the epic Welsh poem ''Y Gododdin'' by Aneirin, which some scholars assign to the late 6th century, though this is still a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Assumption College (Worcester)
Assumption University is a private, Roman Catholic university in Worcester, Massachusetts. Assumption was founded in 1904 by the Augustinians of the Assumption. It enrolls about 2,000 undergraduate students"Profile: Assumption College" U.S. News & World Report, College Rankings and offers 35 majors and 49 minors. The university confers and degrees in its undergradu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Counterexample
A counterexample is any exception to a generalization. In logic a counterexample disproves the generalization, and does so rigorously in the fields of mathematics and philosophy. For example, the fact that "John Smith is not a lazy student" is a counterexample to the generalization “students are lazy”, and both a counterexample to, and disproof of, the universal quantification “all students are lazy.” In mathematics, the term "counterexample" is also used (by a slight abuse) to refer to examples which illustrate the necessity of the full hypothesis of a theorem. This is most often done by considering a case where a part of the hypothesis is not satisfied and the conclusion of the theorem does not hold. In mathematics In mathematics, counterexamples are often used to prove the boundaries of possible theorems. By using counterexamples to show that certain conjectures are false, mathematical researchers can then avoid going down blind alleys and learn to modify conjectures t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First Among Sequels
''First Among Sequels'' is an alternate history, comic fantasy novel by the British author Jasper Fforde. It is the fifth Thursday Next novel, first published on 5 July 2007 in the United Kingdom, and on 24 July 2007 in the United States. The novel follows the continuing adventures of Thursday Next in her fictional version of Swindon and in the BookWorld, and is the first of a new four-part Nextian series.Special features for ''First Among Sequels'' – note that a code word (from the novel) is required to access this page. The title was originally announced, at the end of Fforde's novel '' The Fourth Bear'', as ''The War of the Words''. Plot introduction In order to save the future, u ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jasper Fforde
Jasper Fforde (born 11 January 1961) is an English novelist, whose first novel, ''The Eyre Affair'', was published in 2001. He is known mainly for his ''Thursday Next'' novels, but has published two books in the loosely connected ''The Big Over Easy, Nursery Crime'' series and the first books of two other independent series: ''The Last Dragonslayer'' and ''Shades of Grey 1: The Road to High Saffron, Shades of Grey''. Fforde's books abound in literary allusions and wordplay, tightly scripted plots and playfulness with the conventional, traditional genres. They usually contain elements of metafiction, parody, and Fantasy literature, fantasy. Early life Fforde was born in London on 11 January 1961, the son of John Standish Fforde, the Chief Cashier#Chief Cashiers of The Bank of England, 24th Chief Cashier for the Bank of England. He is a grandson of the Polish political activist, Joseph Retinger, and a great-grandson of the journalist E. D. Morel. Fforde was educated at the progres ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Timothy Gowers
Sir William Timothy Gowers, (; born 20 November 1963) is a British mathematician. He is Professeur titulaire of the Combinatorics chair at the Collège de France, and director of research at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1998, he received the Fields Medal for research connecting the fields of functional analysis and combinatorics. Education Gowers attended King's College School, Cambridge, as a choirboy in the King's College choir, and then Eton College as a King's Scholar, where he was taught mathematics by Norman Routledge. In 1981, Gowers won a gold medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad with a perfect score. He completed his PhD, with a dissertation on ''Symmetric Structures in Banach Spaces'' at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1990, supervised by Béla Bollobás. Career and research After his PhD, Gowers was elected to a Junior Research Fellowship at Trinity College. From 1991 until his return to Cambridge in 1995 he w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fields Medal
The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians under 40 years of age at the International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a meeting that takes place every four years. The name of the award honours the Canadian mathematician John Charles Fields. The Fields Medal is regarded as one of the highest honors a mathematician can receive, and has been described as the Nobel Prize of Mathematics, although there are several major differences, including frequency of award, number of awards, age limits, monetary value, and award criteria. According to the annual Academic Excellence Survey by ARWU, the Fields Medal is consistently regarded as the top award in the field of mathematics worldwide, and in another reputation survey conducted by IREG in 2013–14, the Fields Medal came closely after the Abel Prize as the second most prestigious international award in mathematics. The prize includes a monetary award which, since 2006, has bee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lisbeth Salander
Lisbeth Salander is a fictional character created by Swedish author and journalist Stieg Larsson in his award-winning ''Millennium'' series. She first appeared in the 2005 novel ''The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'', as an asocial computer hacker with a photographic memory who teams up with Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative journalist and publisher of a magazine called ''Millennium''. Salander reappears in ''The Girl Who Played with Fire'' (2006) and '' The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest'' (2007), sequels that Larsson had written before he died in 2004. The character has been positively received, with David Denby writing that Lisbeth Salander clearly accounts for a large part of the ''Millennium'' series' success. In the various film adaptations of the novels, actresses Noomi Rapace, Rooney Mara, and Claire Foy have all received praise for their portrayals of the character. In 2013, publisher Norstedts Förlag commissioned David Lagercrantz to continue the ''Millennium'' serie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Girl Who Played With Fire
''The Girl Who Played with Fire'' ( sv, Flickan som lekte med elden) is the second novel in the best-selling ''Millennium'' series by Swedish writer Stieg Larsson. It was published posthumously in Swedish in 2006 and in English in January 2009. The book features many of the characters who appeared in ''The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'' (2005), among them the title character, Lisbeth Salander, a brilliant computer hacker and social misfit, and Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative journalist and publisher of ''Millennium '' magazine. Widely seen as a critical success, ''The Girl Who Played with Fire'' was also (according to ''The Bookseller'' magazine) the first and only translated novel to be number one in the UK hardback chart. Synopsis After a yearlong sojourn to Grenada, Lisbeth Salander uses three million laundered kronor to purchase a new apartment in Stockholm. She re-establishes contact with Dragan Armansky, her former boss at Milton Securities, and her former legal guard ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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