My encounter with Simon Singh’s Fermat’s last theorem was quite unexpected.  I was nearly late for English, racing through the corridors at breakneck speed, when I suddenly realized that I didn’t bring a book for the 10 minutes silent reading. So, I made a beeline for the library and grabbed the first book off the shelf (from the science section, of course, I am not getting stuck with some 16th century classic with incomprehensible forms of alien mutated English.) This seems as coincident as Andrew Wiles destined encounter with The Last Problem by E.T. Bell, which triggered the series of events that shocked the mathematical community at the end of the 20th century, and brought about the existence of this book. Unfortunately, I am not endowed with the brilliant mind for logic to pursue mathematics, and the world perhaps won’t see me earning the front newspaper page after reading this book like Wiles.

Most fortunately, Fermat’s last theorem was written in the language of the laymen. Although it explained the baseline knowledge needed for the reader to appreciate Andrew Wiles’ proof, such as what in the name of Christ is an elliptical function, Singh opted for analogies as opposed to detailed arithmetic. Fermat’s last theorem is actually, in nature, a history book lecturing on the birth and development of a mathematical concept known as Fermat’s last theorem. The theorem’s history essentially acts like the trunk of a tree, where people and events that made relevant contributions to it branches off, and rendezvous back. However, there are some branches that, in my opinion, strayed too much from the main topic. An example is the tragic life of Évariste Galois, who contributed the idea of group theory to the eventual proof of Fermat’s last theorem. Singh spends pages after pages detailing Galois tragic downfall, describing his personality, political believes, and will with the utmost care. If I wish to learn about Galois life, I would have turned to his biography. This strays a bit too far from the theorem and mathematics for my liking. Aside from these overlong branches that could use a good prune, most extensions were quite interesting. My personal favorite is tied between mathematician’s contribution as cryptographers in World War Two, and the amateur submissions to the Wolfskehl prize which kept the unsolved riddle afloat during years of academic disinterest.

Despite being a book of science, Fermat’s last theorem contains highly emotive descriptions and excitements that rivals narratives. I feel connected to the historical figures introduced in the book, and is genuinely enraptured by their personalities. I’m especially fond of one Sophie Germain. There is something inspiring, and unknowingly warming, in seeing a female mathematician battling her way through prejudice, eventually earning the respect from her idol. But of course, the character that I cared the most is nonetheless the protagonists Andrew Wiles, who the book followed from a 10-year-old pondering in a library, to an eminent professor at Princeton university fulfilling his childhood dream. It’s interesting to note that the book, aside from being structured chronologically to cover the history of the theorem, also follows Wiles’ mathematical career attentively. So, throughout the length of the book, it feels as if I had accompanied Wiles on his intellectual journey, albeit only understanding the most diluted version of his studies. Pride bubbles in my chest as Wiles set down his pen and utters the climatic: “I think I’ll stop here,” during his lecture of the century. Dread creeps through the cavities of my heart as Nick Katz discovered a potentially fatal gap in Wiles’ proof. And the utmost relief overwhelms my being as Wiles patched up his missing link in a moment of “Eureka!”, minus the part about jumping out of the bathtub and parading the streets naked. I understand completely when Wiles, after solving the great riddle that puzzled mathematicians for over three centuries, said: “People have told me that I’ve taken away their problem, and asked If I could give them something else. There is a sense of melancholy. We’ve lost something that’s been with us for so long, and something that drew a lot of us into mathematics.” Similarly, I feel sad finishing this book that had accompanied me everywhere in the past three days: in the dorms, in the library, in the classroom, at every available time, even during lunch and dinner breaks. Something shifted as I close the final page, something’s weird about me not reading it anymore. Flipping it open again, the relaxed feeling of greeting an old friend washes over me. It is hard to believe how Wiles must have felt, having to part with a riddle that’s been in his mind for over two decades, and occupies the whole of his waking hours in the last eight. It must be tough to believe that Fermat last theorem was in doubt as a conjecture no more, even for the person who proved it.

Fermat’s last theorem allows the less fortunate people (in terms of mathematic talents), like me, a peek at the beautiful and punctilious world of mathematics. For a student who’s only interests for math is an A on the report like me, the book provides valuable insights into the mathematical equivalent of Mount Olympics, once obscured by course syllabi, schoolwork, and personal inability. Mathematicians, or mathmagicians as I would like to call them, wields the power of logic to battle invisible enemies in an abstract land unbeknown to us. And that to me, calls for a serious effort on my latest math homework to pay the respect.