The Number Mysteries (AKA The Num8er My5teries) by Marcus Du Sautoy takes 5 well known and hitherto unsolved mathematical problems and presents them as challenges for the reader to solve. Not that you are expected to be able, greater minds than the large majority of us have tried so far in vain to solve these. But it's still intriguing enough that in the back of your mind you do start the exercise mentally (until you figure out how much work is involved).
Each of the 5 chapters is presented in readable format - often devolving from the vastly entertaining history and context of the issue down to the impenetrable algebraic representation of the problem in it's simplest (for some) form.
And enjoyable read and it puts some things in context - like how we encrypt Credit Card information on the internet - smart stuff indeed - not just from a concept point of view - but at the sheer scale of the calculations required to decrypt these without the right code keys. I.e. not impossible - but certainly by the time you scratched the surface on one half of the prime key you'd be several years down the track and several code keys on.
Next week: Possibly Orwell, possibly something else.
No comments:
Post a Comment