This book has entertained, educated and intrigued two generations of young
aspiring mathematicians, as well as people who would never grow up to do
research mathematics, but who could see the beauty of number. Bell's style
is addictive; he makes every personality come to life--from Galois,
brilliant, unlucky and doomed, to Gauss, the "Prince of Mathematicians", to
Pascal, mystical and tormented. No one who reads this book can forget, for
example, the section entitled "Galois' last night", where, the night before
Galois knows he will die, he spends "the fleeting hours feverishly dashing
off his last will and testament, writing against time to glean a few of the
great things in his teeming mind before the death which he foresaw could
overtake him. Time after time he broke off to scribble in the margin 'I
have not time; I have not time,' and passed on to the next frantically
scrawled outline."
Which is sad, in a way, because it is, according to modern accounts of
Galois' life, not accurate. The work Bell is describing was written before
his last night, in no such hurry. This has been known for some time, and
yet few who know, and who perhaps should know better, will relinquish their
affection for this marvellous book. It so captures the enthusiasm one can
feel for the beauty and poetry that mathematics brings to the mind that
errors of fact are minor flaws.
And the errors are few enough that they really don't matter. In Galois'
case, for example, one takes away a deeply etched portrait of an
astonishing mind that descended on revolutionary France like a meteorite,
and which had about as much chance of being understood. This is accurate,
and Bell tells his stories so powerfully that they stay in the mind--for
decades, in my case and that of others I know who have read him.
Bell includes many wonderful quotes and stories. The whole first section of
the book is just a series of quotes--my favourite is perhaps Weierstrass,
"A mathematician who is not also something of a poet will never be a
complete mathematician." But he lards the book with quotes, and since this
book can profitably be read by an enthusiastic 12-year-old, and often has
been, for many people this book is the first time they will meet with such
famous quotes as Newton's line about being merely a child, playing with
pretty pebbles on the seashore.
Bell claims that the book is not a history of mathematics, and he's right.
It's a series of chapters that provide biographical--and
mathematical--sketches of thirty-odd great mathematicians, from Archimedes
to Cantor. You'll learn a lot about the history of mathematics from this
book, but mostly you'll be infected by the passionate enthusiasm of someone
who knows and loves his subject. Buy it; read it; if you love mathematics
you won't regret it.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671628186/ref=ase_weisstein-20/103-2932406-1249463
