Blogging will be light during the holiday break but if you too have time on your hands, I think many people will find enjoyable this 46-minute documentary made (I think) in 1997 that looks at Andrew Wiles’s quest to solve Fermat’s Last Theorem. I did not understand almost all of the sophisticated mathematics involved but that did not matter.
What was fascinating was the insight into how mathematicians work, how in math (and science) knowledge is so interlocked that the solution to one problem may lie in unlocking another one that looks quite different, at least on the surface.
Thanks, Mano.
I read Simon Singh’s book on this and felt that I almost understood it!
This should be fun.
I find his principle more interesting 😉
Rob G, you might enjoy Greg Egan’s The Clockwork Rocket, the first volume of Orthogonal.
Thanks for that link John. I read The Clockwork Rocket last year but the what-if physics went completely over my head. Now that I have some resources to study I may go back and finish the series.
For me the video was ruined by the appearance of Ken Ribet. one of my wife’s old boyfriends.