Product Description
While growing up in revolutionary France, Evariste Galois immersed himself in the study of mathematics, a pursuit that allowed him a welcome glimpse of order at a time when chaos consumed his country. Arrogant, ambitious, and brilliant, Galois dreamed of solving the quintic, a complex equation that had baffled many talented mathematicians before him--but after his father's mysterious death, he devoted himself to Republican politics with the same fervent energy he had applied to his mathematical studies. Rich in historical detail and bursting with intellectual passion, this captivating novel describes a genius's valiant quest for truth--in a turbulent and uncertain era that in many ways mirrors the one in which we live today.

"An engaging historical novel."-- Kirkus Reviews

"In this remarkable novel, Petsinis resurrects a young, overemotional, impetuous, and headstrong genius whose personal failures read like a Hugo novel but whose voice resonates more clearly now with the passage of time."-- Booklist

"Draws a vivid picture of post-Napoleon France....Petsinis makes mathematical passion accessible...a fine account of revolutionary France and a look into a mind that made great discoveries."-- The Stranger (Seattle, WA)Amazon.com Review
The French Mathematician is a fictional memoir ofEvariste Galois, the mathematical genius who made innovations inalgebra before his untimely death in 1832. Galois narrates the book,describing how he sought solace in "the order and certainty ofgeometry" during the social and political upheaval in France at thetime. The book chronicles his adolescence, his growth as amathematician, his political awakening, and his death in a duel. TomPetsinis teaches math at a university in Australia, and this is thefirst of his books to be published in the United States. The bareoutline of Petsinis's book is interesting, but unfortunately TheFrench Mathematician is somewhat overburdened with flowerylanguage and hallucinatory dream sequences. When Galois works hard ona math problem, he tends to fall into a reverie, like this: "My heartwas now beating faster than usual. No longer Evariste Galois, I amimpersonal, at one with the eternal mind responsible for mathematics,impelled forward to discover the mystery at the center of thelabyrinth.But just as the solution is within reach, I am distractedby the scent of chamomile." A scantily clad temptress interrupts theyoung genius's reverie during this hallucination and severalothers. Even though Galois struggles to separate himself from thedistractions of the material world, a love affair ultimately brings onhis demise.Evariste Galois was probably a fascinating, difficultperson, but the budding mathematician Petsinis describes in this bookis not a very likable or interesting character--he's a sort ofhumorless and bitter teen. --Jill Marquis ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

A Genius too advanced for his time
Reading the story told in 1st person about the tragic life of Galois, there were few persons who contributed to Galois's misfortune:

1. Cauchy whose selfishness to block Galois's papers 'intentionally';
2. Poisson whose ignorance caused Galois's total disappointment in academia, pushed him to the fire of revolution;
3. Ecole Polytechnique's CONCOURS Entrance Examiners who failed Galois for 2 years;
4. Ecole Normale Superieure Director who expelled Galois;
5. The Jesuit who caused his father's suicide;
6. The coquette french lady who used Galois to make her Fiancee jealous, which led to the fatal duel.

It is ironical that Ecole Normale Sup is now the highest Math institution in France, apologized for the mistake ofexpelling Galois only after 100 years.

'X' (Ecole Polytechnique's nick name) produced the Group Theory only 14 years after Galois's death.

One important person in Galois Math career was his teacher Louis Richard from Lycee Louis-le-Grand. 20 years later Richard produced another great mathematician Charles Hermite (proved e transcendental), whose German student Lindermann (proved pi transcendental) was the 'ancestor' of German Gottingen mathematicians. Funny thing was Hermite entered 'X' as last student, passed by a thin line, almost repeated Galois's failure- Hermite was asked to quit after 1 year in 'X' !

Conclusion: The Concours (Entrance Exams) could not detect Math genius ! Today the 'bloody' Concours still exits in France as fierce competition entering to the elite Grandes Ecoles (the prestigious 'X' still being the toughest). How many more young genius like Galois will the Concours be denying outside the wall of Math ?

A bit wild for me
I'm going to tell you like it is:

I went in with the information given by ET Bell when reading about this curious character and came out of this book wondering what the hell? I looked on the back of the book - fiction. Thank God. Founding a religion on X? I had to check because some people are actually that crazy.

Tom runs wild with imagination with Evariste Galois. It's a nice story for the most part, but there are some parts in this book where you just sit and wonder if Petsinis was bored, drunk, or a combination of the two when writing some of the stuff in the book.

Galois, the man --
-- but almost nothing of Galois the mathematician.

Galois founded a branch of math that still bears his name, the study of Galois fields. They're in use everywhere today, from the nearest cell phone or DVD to the most distant interplanetary probe. But the book barely mentions his mathematical achievements and certainly doesn't describe them, so let's move along.

Galois himself has all the makings of a great romantic figure. It's a matter of historical fact that was mathematical prodigy, with important work published during his short life. It's also true that he died in a duel at age 21, after spending his final night organizing his mathematical notes for posterity. That, plus simply living through a time of intense political upheaval, let alone being involved in it, makes him a character quite able to capture the imagination. Petsinis' imagination has been quite completely captivated.

If anything, there may be a bit too much imagination in this rendering of Galois' life. It's told in the first person, from Galois' own point of view, for which historical justification is thin at best. With so little fact at hand, Petsinis has created a wildly emotional character. In this presentation, Galois seemed quite incapable of moderation in any feeling, driven continually between white-hot intensity and blackest depression. Every page seemed to sizzle with overheated passion for math, for his politics, for his family, or for what he had for breakfast - I was tempted to set an ice pack on the book more than once.

Given all that was obviously fabricated in the cause of a good story, I'm not sure how much to trust any of the other facts that might have historical reality. How much was his mathematical career actually affected by perceptions of his politics? The paranoid view here suggests that the mathematical establishment conspired to create a wall of silence around the firebrand's work during his lifetime. On the whole, inertia and absent-mindedness look like equally good explanations.

I find this a fair (if wildly expressive) novel, a questionable biography, and a disappointing tribute to the mathematician and his mathematical achievements. It is very tempting to romanticize Galois the man, and Petsinis has fallen completely for that temptation.

//wiredweird

Unsympathetic protagonist, but a well-done novel
This fictionalized account of mathematician Evariste Galois's life ushers us directly and intimately into the mind of one whose discoveries continue to influence present-day nuclear physics and genetic engineering.

Having had his early education at home under the tutelage of his literary-minded mother, fifteen-year-old Evariste Galois is sent to Paris to complete his education.A sensitive, arrogant genius, he detests the school, the teachers, and all the other students.Then he is exposed to mathematics for the first time and knows he has found that thing that so few of us ever do: his calling.To Evariste, mathematics is its own reward, a refuge of logic in a chaotic world.It is the key to unlock the secrets of the universe.It is a new and superior religion.He vows he will be the first to solve the quintic, a complex equation that has confounded many great minds.

There are obstacles in his path to this goal.First, he must struggle to suppress his own emerging sexuality.Then, there are the schoolmates who continually goad and harass him to join their Republican groups.Less easily ignored are the grievous social inequities and turmoil surrounding him.When his father dies, an alleged suicide, Evariste at last begins to question his singular devotion to mathematics.

Evariste tells his own story, addressing himself to an imaginary biographer who shadows him throughout the book, experiencing events as he does, all in present tense.While this type of narration can be off-putting, Petsinis utilizes it respectably and often with great drama.He adeptly conveys to the reader information that the self-absorbed and oblivious protagonist himself misses.Petsinis's prose is rich with original and evocative metaphors and similes, and his flair for verb choice gives the story a distinctively realistic feel.

Egotistical and insolent, Evariste is difficult to like at the outset.Yet the reader soon glimpses the fragile and idealistic heart of an insecure young man possessed of remarkable mental gifts.As the story unfolds, the reader comes to understand the noble soul of Evariste Galois -- his consuming desire to give his life to a meaningful cause and to attain immortality through his work.

Genius distracted
There are many types of genius - obscure genius like that of the mathematician Ramanujan which defies analysis, persistent genius like JS Bach who produced an endless stream of inspired work through his long life, blocked genius like that of Einstein who produced a work of unquestionable genius but then - despite his qualities of innovation and analysis - was unable to progress with his next major theory through a significant period of his life (of course, no-one else has yet managed to achieve what he attempted).And the absent-minded professor is such an archetype.But Galois - the subject of this novel - shows himself to be the distracted genius.What could he have achieved if he had been supported properly by his peers - mentored as Ramanujan was?What might he have achieved if he had lived in a more stable political environment?

I enjoyed this novel although at times I thought it was a little long for the story it was telling.And Galois was depicted as such an unattractive self-assured but doubting person. I particularly didn't like his attitude towards people - especially women - as portrayed in the novel, anyway.It seemed that the negative in human behaviour had such a powerful influence that the positive - and surely he must have encountered some - was swept aside.But that would lead to, say, never eating an orange because one day one came across a bad one.

But I do have a philosophical objection to what this novel is - or isn't.Although I was attracted to the idea of dramatising the life of a mathematician because I believe it is imperative that we overcome the cultural acceptance of an inability to do mathematics - even a pride in not being asble to do mathematics - that seems to be all around me.And one step in this direction is to put people back into the subject.Who were Cauchy and Poisson whose names are attached to theorems and processes - and all the others so named.Cauchy and Poisson I mention because they are minor characters in 'The French Mathematician', and I hope Mr Petsinis has not done them an injustice with the bad press he has given them.

In 2000 I attended a seminar in Orlando, Florida.My wife and I took our two young boys (aged 4 and 6) with us so that they could experience some of the States, including, of course, Disneyland and Universal Studios. But later, when we reached NASA, we had to try and assure tham that this was real - not just another theme park.And then NASA undid the good work by showing a 3D movie of life in a space station - in the next century.Reality was confused with make believe again.What does this have to do with 'The French Mathemtician'?Well, it seems to me that the historic novel as this is - it is not history, a biography - is rather like a theme park.It does have elements of the real but these are so buried in the author's imagining that it becomes difficult to determine what is reality, how close the imagining comes to the way things really were.I enjoyed reading Mr Petsinis' realisation of the life of Galois and I hope I have a proper perspective on the man's life, and the times he lived in, but I do have doubts.

One word of advice for people who might read this novel hoping to also get some insights into Evariste Galois's mathematics - there is no mathematics in this novel. ... Read more

Product Description
"We gave this story to a very competent, and very pretty gal artist. We said, ""Read this carefully, dream on it, and come up with an illustration."" A week later, she returned with the finished drawing. ""The hero,"" she said. We did a double take. ""Hey! That''s not the hero."" She looked us straight in the eye. ""Can you prove it"" She had us. We couldn''t, and she left hurriedly to go home and cook dinner for her family. And what were they having Frog legs--what else" ... Read more

Product Description
Chapters: René Descartes, Blaise Pascal, Marquis de Condorcet, Abraham de Moivre, Jean-Charles de Borda, Augustin-Louis Cauchy, Alexander Grothendieck, Sophie Germain, Évariste Galois, Adrien-Marie Legendre, Joseph Louis Lagrange, René Thom, Henri Poincaré, Jean le Rond D'alembert, Henri Lebesgue, Benoît Mandelbrot, Alain Connes, Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot, Siméon Denis Poisson, André Weil, Pope Sylvester Ii, Charles Émile Picard, Anselme Payen, Édouard Roche, Gaspard-Gustave Coriolis, François Arago, Laurent Lafforgue, Gaspard Monge, Alphonse de Polignac, Marin Mersenne, Thomas Joannes Stieltjes, Jean-Baptiste Biot, Étienne Bézout, Jules Richard, Gabriel Lamé, Jacques Roubaud, Louis François Antoine Arbogast, Étienne-Louis Malus, Nicolas Bourbaki, Édouard Lucas, Olry Terquem, Jacques Herbrand, Lazare Carnot, Joseph Louis François Bertrand, Urbain le Verrier, Pierre-Simon Laplace, Franciscus Vieta, Pierre Louis Maupertuis, Louis Bachelier, Émile Lemoine, Antoine Augustin Cournot, Émilie Du Châtelet, Pierre de Fermat, Paul Painlevé, Joseph Fourier, Robert Vallée, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, Henri Brocard, Marcel-Paul Schützenberger, Jacques Hadamard, Jean-Victor Poncelet, Antoine Arnauld, Charles Hermite, Jean-Pierre Serre, Joseph Sauveur, Maurice René Fréchet, Georges Matheron, Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre, Jacques Pelletier Du Mans, Claude Chevalley, Maurice Princet, Nicolas Chuquet, Michel Deza, Charles de Bovelles, Laurent Schwartz, Mikhail Gromov, Louis Poinsot, Henri Cartan, Élie Cartan, Ismaël Bullialdus, Alexis Clairaut, Jean Serra, Guy Tachard, Jean-Baptiste-Charles-Joseph Bélanger, Joseph Valentin Boussinesq, Jean Gaston Darboux, Louis Couturat, Jean Dieudonné, Paul Émile Appell, Georges Giraud, Oronce Finé, Paul Tannery, Jean-Baptiste Morin, Théodore Reinach, Jacques Tits, André Bloch, Marcel Légaut, Nicolas-François Canard, Antoine Deparcieux, Jacques Charles François Sturm, Sebastien Truchet, Philip...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=344783 ... Read more

Product Description
Chapters: Alphonse de Polignac, Jacques Roubaud, Olry Terquem, Jean Gaston Darboux, Georges Giraud, Jean-Robert Argand, Paul-André Meyer, Raphaël Salem, Pierre-Louis Lions, Jacques-Louis Lions, Bernard Lamy, Jean Leray, Émile Borel, Charles Ehresmann, Gustave Malécot, Olinde Rodrigues, Sylvestre François Lacroix, Maurice Lévy, Alexander of Villedieu, Jean-Christophe Yoccoz, Geneviève Guitel, Roger Apéry, Jean Paul de Gua de Malves, Pierre Samuel, Jehan Adam, Roland Fraïssé, Giacomo F. Maraldi, Gustave Choquet, Ernest Esclangon, Claude Berge, Charles Julien Brianchon, Paul de Casteljau, François Budan de Boislaurent, Henri Cohen, Jean-Pierre Kahane, Pierre Rosenstiehl, René de Possel, Charles Étienne Louis Camus, Christian Kramp, Gilles Pisier, Pierre Wantzel, Achille Brocot, Jacques Dixmier, Roland Glowinski, René-Louis Baire, Pierre Cartier, Ernest Vessiot, Émile Léonard Mathieu, Henri Padé, André-Louis Cholesky, Étienne Ghys, Jean-Louis Koszul, Joseph Alfred Serret, Michel Hénon, Stella Baruk, Claude-Louis Mathieu, Pierre Girard, André Sainte-Laguë, Georges Henri Halphen, Paul Malliavin, Claire Voisin, Jacques Rohault, Hélène Esnault, Pierre Alphonse Laurent, Dominique Foata, Victor Puiseux, François le Lionnais, Gaston Tarry, Jean-Yves Girard, Alexis Hocquenghem, Thierry Aubin, Paul Antoine Aristide Montel, Théodore Cornut, Yves Meyer, Arnaud Denjoy, Yvon Villarceau, Louis Antoine, Olivier Ramaré, Charles Bossut, Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, Léopold Leau, Antoine de Laloubère, François Loeser, Charles Méray, François Nicole, Paul Dubreil, Pierre Pansu, Paul Matthieu Hermann Laurent, Jean Giraud, Pierre Dusart, Louis Bertillon, Bernard Roy, Jean Delsarte, Pierre Dangicourt, Yves Laszlo, Claude Mydorge, Johannes de Muris, Jean-Charles Faugère, Antoine Parent, Jules Hoüel, François Bruhat, Victor Thébault. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 232. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publi...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=1142530 ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Mechanical Engineering-CIME, published by Thomson Gale on August 1, 2005. The length of the article is 1158 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Fourier: is this French mathematician the true father of modern engineering?
Author: Eugene F. Adiutori
Publication: Mechanical Engineering-CIME (Magazine/Journal)
Date: August 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 127Issue: 8Page: 30(2)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
Blaise Pascal - French Mathematician and Religious Philosopher is the biography of Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher. Pascal was a child prodigy who was educated by his father. His earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences where he made important contributions to the construction of mechanical calculators, the study of fluids, and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum by generalizing the work of Evangelista Torricelli. Pascal also wrote in defense of the scientific method. His two most famous works are the Lettres provinciales and the Pensées. Pascal suffered from ill health throughout his life and died two months after his 39th birthday. Blaise Pascal - French Mathematician and Religious Philosopher is highly recommended for those interested in learning more about this accomplished mathematician and religious philosopher. ... Read more

Product Description
René Descartes (31 March 1596 ? 11 February 1650), alsoknown as Renatus Cartesius (Latinized form), was a Frenchphilosopher, mathematician, physicist, and writer who spentmost of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has beendubbed the "Father of Modern Philosophy", and much ofsubsequent Western philosophy is a response to hiswritings, which continue to be studied closely to this day.In particular, his Meditations on First Philosophycontinues to be a standard text at most universityphilosophy departments. Descartes' influence in mathematicsis also apparent, the Cartesian coordinate system allowinggeometric shapes to be expressed in algebraic equationsbeing named for him. He is credited as the father ofanalytical geometry. Descartes was also one of the keyfigures in the Scientific Revolution. ... Read more

Product Description
"We gave this story to a very competent, and very pretty gal artist. We said, Read this carefully, dream on it, and come up with an illustration. A week later, she returned with the finished drawing. The hero, she said. We did a double take. Hey! That''s not the hero. She looked us straight in the eye. Can you prove it She had us. We couldn''t, and she left hurriedly to go home and cook dinner for her family. And what were they having Frog legs--what else " ... Read more

Product Description

Numerous scientists have taken part in the war effort during World War I, but few gave it the passionate energy of the prominent Italian mathematician Volterra. As a convinced supporter of the cause of Britain and France, he struggled vigorously to carry Italy into the war in May 1915 and then developed a frenetic activity to support the war effort, going himself to the front, even though he was 55. This activity found an adequate echo with his French colleagues Borel, Hadamard and Picard. The huge correspondence they exchanged during the war, gives an extraordinary view of these activities, and raises numerous fundamental questions about the role of a scientist, and particularly a mathematician during WW I. It also offers a vivid documentation about the intellectual life of  the time ; Volterra’s and Borel’s circles in particular were extremely wide and the range of their interests was not limited to their field of specialization. The book proposes the complete transcription of the aforementioned correspondence, annotated with numerous footnotes to give details on the contents. It also offers a general historical introduction to the context of the letters and several complements on themes related to the academic exchanges between France and Italy during the war.

Product Description
The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration and rapidly growing technology and expanding record-keeping made possible by advances in the printing press. In its determination to preserve the century of revolution, Gale initiated a revolution of its own: digitization of epic proportions to preserve these invaluable works in the largest archive of its kind. Now for the first time these high-quality digital copies of original 18th century manuscripts are available in print, making them highly accessible to libraries, undergraduate students, and independent scholars.
Medical theory and practice of the 1700s developed rapidly, as is evidenced by the extensive collection, which includes descriptions of diseases, their conditions, and treatments. Books on science and technology, agriculture, military technology, natural philosophy, even cookbooks, are all contained here.
++++
The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification:
++++
Cambridge University Library

T197614

A mathematician = John French.

London : printed by J. Cluer; and sold by the author; and at Mr. Walpool's, 1715. 20p. ; 4° ... Read more

Product Description

From the reviews of Vol. IV:

"This is the fourth volume of J-P. Serre's Collected Papers covering the period 1985-1998. Items, numbered 133-173, contain "the essence'' of his work from that period and are devoted to number theory, algebraic geometry, and group theory. Half of them are articles and another half are summaries of his courses in those years and letters. Most courses have never been previously published, nor proofs of the announced results. The letters reproduced, however (in particular to K. Ribet and M.-F. Vignéras), provide indications of some of those proofs. Also included is an interview with J-P. Serre from 1986, revealing his views on mathematics (with the stress upon its integrity) and his own mathematical activity. The volume ends with Notes which complete the text by reporting recent progress and occasionally correct it.

The volume is an indispensable addition to previous ones and the whole set presents a fine piece of modern mathematics."

Zentralblatt MATH

In this softcover edition of volume IV, two recently published articles have been added, one on the life and works of Andrè Weil, the other one on Finite Subgroups of Lie Groups.

Product Description
This volume contains the work of the great Swiss mathematician on differential geometry, a field marked by some of his greatest achievements. Between 1690 and 1700, Jacob Bernoulli published twelve treatises in the scientific journal Acta Eruditorum on the use of infinitesimal methods to answer geometrical questions. Preparatory notes for most of these papers and on many other themes are found in Bernoulli's scientific diary Meditationes, from which twentynine texts are published here for the first time. Among the curves considered are the isochrones (lines of constant descent), the parabolic spiral, the loxodrome, the cycloid, the tractrix, and the logarithmic spiral (Bernoulli's spira mirabilis, which also adorns his tombstone). The description of these curves by differential equations and by geometrical constructions, their rectification and quadrature, and the determination of their evolutes and caustics offered Bernoulli and his colleagues a range of challenging problems, many of them relevant for mechanical or optical applications. The French mathematician André Weil, who lived in the United States until his recent death, has greatly influenced 20th century mathematics, among other things, as a founding member of the Bourbaki group. For many years he has pursued intensive studies of the history of mathematics, especially number theory and algebraic geometry. Weil's introduction to this volume places Jacob Bernoulli's contribution to differential geometry in a line of development from Descartes, Huygens and Barrow through Newton's und Leibniz's epochal innovations right up to the codification of the subject by Euler. Martin Mattmüller, secretary of the Bernoulli Edition at Basel, edited the source text. His commentaries consider particular topics in differential geometry with reference to their historical context at the end of the 17th century. ... Read more

Product Description
Marcel Riesz (1886-1969) was the younger of the famed pair of mathematicians and brothers. Although Hungarian he spent most of his professional life in Sweden. He worked on summability theory, analytic functions, the moment problem, harmonic and functional analysis, potential theory and the wave equation. The depth of his research and the clarity of his writing place his work on the same level as that of his brother Frédéric Riesz. This edition of his Collected Papers contains most of Marcel Riesz's published papers with the exception of a few papers in Hungarian that were subsumed into later books. It also includes a translation by J. Horváth of Riesz's thesis on summable trigonometric series and summable power series. They are thus a valuable reference work for libraries and for researchers. ... Read more