The Artist and the Mathematician: The Story of Nicolas Bourbaki, the Genius Mathematician Who Never Existed

Description

Nicolas Bourbaki, whose mathematical publications began to appear in the late 1930s, was a direct product of and major force behind an important revolution that took place in the early part of the 20th century: pure maths - a seemingly abstract field of human study with no direct connection to the real world, but in reality closely linked to the culture that surrounds it. This is the story of Bourbaki and the world that created him at that time - the story of an elaborate intellectual joke, because this extremely influential mathematician never existed.

Amir D. Aczel is the author of Fermat's Last Theorem, The Mystery of the Aleph, God's Equation, The Riddle of the Compass and Chance, among many other titles. His work has been translated into French, German, Japanese, Dutch, Turkish, Hebrew, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish and Finnish.

a fascinating topic -- Kirkus Reviews lay readers interested in mathematical history will learn a lot they didn't know from Aczel's latest book -- Publishers Weekly Aczel is known as a masterful storyteller, a polymath and a remarkably productive writer - nearly a book a year for the last decade. In jest, one wonders whether Amir D. Aczel might not be a pseudonym for a secret society of scribes. As far as literary bonbons go, The Artist and the Mathematician is not quite the quality of a melt-in-your-mouth French truffle, but for those who crave a hit it is well worth a weekend's reading -- Siobhan Roberts * The Globe & Mail (Canada) *