Maths and Hope
I know what you might be thinking after reading the title, probably something along the lines of "this guy picks the worst topics to write about". First it was statistics, then it was data analysis and now it's maths. It's hardly clickbait but hopefully this is more interesting than it sounds. I recently read Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh and I thought it was amazing. Fermat's Last Theorem is a maths problem first posed by Pierre de Fermat in the 17th century. Fermat wrote that he had solved the problem but there wasn't enough space in the margin to explain it (an excuse that shouldn't be used in exams). Simon Singh's book begins in Ancient Greece, moves on to Fermat in 17th century France and then moves through the recent history of the problem including all the genius, confusion, rivalries and collaborations that occurred along the way. In this article I will focus on both individual genius and collaboration. At first glance, it might see...