Mathematics

Keith Devlin is the Dean of Science at Saint Mary's College of California and a Senior Researcher at Stanford University's Center for the Study of Language and Information. Since 1983, he has been a regular columnist on mathematics and computing for the Guardian newspaper in England, and he is the mathematics commentator on National Public Radio's popular "Weekend Edition" magazine program. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the author of twenty-three books on mathematics and computing, including Life by Numbers and The Language of Mathematics.

• 1. Prime Numbers, Factoring, and Secret Codes 2. Sets, Infinity, and the Undecidable 3. Number Systems and the Class Number Problem 4. Beauty from Chaos 5. Simple Groups 6. Hilbert's Tenth Problem 7. The Four-Color Problem 8. Hard Problems About Complex Numbers 9. Knots, Topology, and the Universe 10. Fermat's Last Theorem 11. The Efficiency of Algorithms

Excellent... He presents us with a series of colorful personalities and seminal ideas [and] conveys all of the power, beauty and excitement of mathematics... Well-written, informative. Mathematical Association of America (of the first ed.) A beautiful, rich book. Guardian (of the first ed.) Devlin's choice of material is excellent, and he is to be praised for the clarity and accuracy with which he presents it. -- Martin Gardner New York Review of Books (of the first ed.) Devlin makes the beauty of math apparent, the most esoteric of concepts sing. If more scientists wrote with Devlin's simplicity and feeling, the world would be a much more informed place. Atlanta Journal-Constitution