Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture.

Uncle Petros and Goldbach’s Conjecture.
Apostolos Doxiadis. Faber and Faber 2000
ISBN: 0571202039

Mathematics does not seem the most promising subject for a novel; and in the field of mathematics, the esoteric field of number theory seems even less promising. Apostolos Doxiadis’s Uncle Petros, however, succeeds triumphantly, not only spinning a wonderful story around the mathematics but also making maths itself sparkle in a way it never did at school.

Uncle Petros is the black sheep of the Papachristos family, an elderly hermit who lives in a house filled with books and who wastes every hour of the day playing chess. Once, however, Petros was a famous mathematician, and when his nephew decides that he himself wants to become a mathematician, Petros sets him a challenge. If, he tells his nephew, he can prove the following proposition, then he will permit his nephew to study mathematics; if not, then he will ask his nephew to sign an affadavit that promises he will never go anywhere near mathematics again.

The proposition to be proved is this: Every even number above two is the sum of two primes. The young mathematician goes away and labours over the problem for the entire summer, only to return to his uncle and to admit defeat. He signs the agreement never to become a mathematician. What he doesn’t yet know is that what his uncle has asked him to prove is Goldbach’s conjecture, one of the biggest unsolved problems in mathematics.

From this beginning, Doxiadis spins a story of considerable charm and lightness, but one that remains utterly compelling. Doxiadis himself was a mathematics prodigy, and entered the mathematics department at Columbia University at the age of fifteen after the submission of an original paper; but, more than this, he manages to convey the passion for numbers that drives the mathematician, a passion that borders on obsession.

Time is short for a mathematician, Doxiadis tells us; most of the great mathematicians of the past peak in their early or mid thirties. This race against time lends an urgency to the book. But were it not not for this warning, then I too might be beguiled by this wonderful book into ordering a pile of books on mathematics and spending the rest of my days immersed in theorems and proofs. And that is saying something.