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But when the aliens get to earth they decide the human race is worth saving, partly because of the interaction of Ranjit and his family, and instead settle some of their multi-tentacled "people" in the desert of North Africa. "Theorem" is not Clarke's best but, since it is his last, all fans of his should read it. Clarke's last novel, "The Last Theorem," was co-written with fellow Grand Master of Science Fiction, Frederik Pohl. And lastly, Ranjit, who, after his body dies, utilizes alien technology by having his essence transmuted into electronic form, living in that state presumably forever. The book is filled with echoes and clichés of much of Clarke's excellent work, as well as an allusion to Clarke's own homosexuality. The story is about a young man from Sri Lanka named Ranjit Subramanian, who, a mathematics wunderkind, solves Fermat's Last Theorem, an equation similar to the Pythagorean Theorem. While this happens, the Grand Galactics from the Centaurus star system fly to earth, hoping to snuff out the human race, which recently wielded the ultimate WMD, an EMP bomb named Silent Thunder that destroys circuitry without killing anyone.
The only value this book provides is to explain Russian Peasant Multiplication, which is a very cool trick, but certainly not worth the time to read the whole book. I am not sure what was going on here, but there is a hint of several interesting ideas in this book, but they are not developed at all as if the author(s) weren't sure if this was a bad drama or science fiction. Do a Google search for Russian Multiplication and spend your time on that instead. The Last Theorem was loaned to me by a good friend who in the past has suggested some fantastic books. This was not one of them.
Expected of course, of two of the best writers the world has known.I strongly recommend reading the book. I liked very much the Last Theorem. The authors join a subtle sense of humour with scientific up to date knowledge, and, most of all, people knowledge.
Pohl says it would take a computer to assess the satisfiability of Wiles-Ribet-Fry, or that that "no biological human could read it"--which is a strange way only a science fiction author could put it I guess. My son accomplished this in his Modern Algebra course he took as independent study, and indeed, even expanded in places it takes only three pages:[.].The covering dimension is the span between like powers of natural numbers, as a difference. The alien subplot is similar to Childhood's End or The War of the Worlds, still that's pretty much what you get all the time with science fiction.
Nested binomial expansion is a little tricky but a good exercise with indexed sums (a + (b + c))^n or group inside the other way. And you get the usual recursion relation, a simple mapping to the rationals, cancellation and substitution and using triangular matrix representation as the Pascal Triangle. What should result is a statement in the presentation of the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra demonstrating reducio ad absurdum.
This book has leveled a critique at the touted "proof" of Fermat's Last Theorem from two authors who knew and know more than a little about math and how proofs are done.At least the plot would seem to be recycling Hollywood in a new way, Sneakers and Mercury Rising, for example. Completion of the n-square actually follows directly from the standard technique in algebra for deriving the quadratic equation, that and some awareness of simple fractal renormalization approaches. See for yourself.
To suggest Ranjit's proof takes only three pages might seem absurd or impossible given the hundreds of years so many mathematicians have labored away at it, then the disappointing claim that basically is 300 pages of still further and obscure journal references unavailable in most American university libraries. Ignorance then is bliss.
The many anecdotes and mathematical trivia that can be found in the book are enriching, and keep up the entertainment value. In spite of the weaknesses, there are lots of treasures in this book. The result is lots of loose ends and unsatisfactory resolutions of subplots.
First, it was written by two authors that I like for very different reasons. What follows has nothing to do with the proof, and could just as well have been a different book. This book caught my interest for a variety of reasons.
The authors had no problem gathering new momentum for the second part of the book, but in doing so they started more storylines than they could handle. Overall I did not regret reading this book. Second, the title refers to one of the most fascinating stories in the history of mathematics, and I was curious to see what these great authors would handle that subject.Although the result is an interesting read, I was a little disappointed overall.
The search and eventual find of the elusive proof of Fermat's last theorem using only mathematical techniques known in Fermat's days is a capturing story, but once the proof is published the story deflates.
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