Book Description
Evariste Galois' short life was lived against the turbulent background of the restoration of the Bourbons to the throne of France, the 1830 revolution in Paris and the accession of Louis-Phillipe. This new and scrupulously researched biography of the founder of modern algebra sheds much light on a life led with great intensity and a death met tragically under dark circumstances. Sorting speculation from documented fact, it offers the fullest and most exacting account ever written of Galois' life and work. It took more than seventy years to fully understand the French mathematician's first mémoire (published in 1846) which formulated the famous "Galois theory" concerning the solvability of algebraic equations by radicals, from which group theory would follow. Obscurities in his other writings - mémoires and numerous fragments of extant papers - persist and his ideas challenge mathematicians to this day. Thus scholars will welcome those chapters devoted specifically to explicating all aspects of Galois' work. A comprehensive bibliography enumerates studies by and also those about the mathematician. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An excellent and enjoyable account...
of one of the strangest chapters in the history of mathematics. For those who know of Galois' life only from E.T.Bell's telling this work will hold surprises and serve to part his overly romantic fog with the clear light ofsolid scholarship. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The short life of Evariste Galois.
When asked, friends tell me that they think a mathematician or a scientist would typically have lived a long, and comfortable life. Perhaps that is so, but far from all the time: not now, not a hundred, or two hundred years ago. In mathematics, two romantic heros stand out, N. H. Abel, and Evariste Galois. Both lived at the start of the Nineteenth Century, and both died tragically, Galois in a duel.
The author Infeld is a romantic, and great writer; and he happens to also be a scientist. In addition to this book, Leopold Infeld wrote other captivating books. He was one of the first scientists who sucessfully intertwined science with popular writing. Infeld himself escaped from the Jewish Ghetto in Cracow, Poland, at the time of WWI. As he matured, he lived as a refugee scientist and writer, and miraculously overcame an incredible web of adversities that were stacked up against him.
Other books by Infeld include an autobiography, called "Quest", and a popular science book, "The Evolution of Physics", co-authored with Albert Einstein. Both books were bestsellers when they first appeared. I stumbled over Infeld's Galois biography purely by accident: Started to read late in the evening, were immediately hooked, and I didn't put the book down until the end, at sunrise. In the book we read about the last night of Galois's short life, the night before his fatal duel the next morning ("There is so little time" he wrote!). The young Galois hurriedly scribbled his original and profound ideas of matheamtics, and he gained imortality through the power of his insight. The life of Evariste Galois is a truly captivating drama, and written by one of the great story tellers. I am convinced that Infeld's stories, and his books, are less well known than they deserve to be.
Review by Palle Jorgensen, October 2003. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (9)

the source!
This is modern Galois Theory, straight from the horse's mouth! Galois Theory is taught today using field extensions rather than by actually solving polynomials, students also learn to view a field extension as a vector space over the smaller field; both of these things were pioneered by Artin. The book also has short, clear proofs of all the main theorems. The only problem is that there are no problems to work on, so I have to say this is only a good reference for Galois Theory.

Succinct exposition of modern Galois theory by a pioneer.
Emil Artin's short book gets a mention in most texts on
Galois theory. It is very short - only 60 odd pages. Yet
it is a very clear, complete and readable account of the
essential elements of modern Galois theory. It is based
on lectures he gave over 50 years ago but you might think
it was written only yesterday and is comprehensible to
anyone familiar with current abstract algebra terminology.
And the price makes it a bargain. There are no worked
examples, exercises or index here.

just enjoy
during reading this cute booklet, you can surely hear the gentle talk of an old math maven.(from the publishing date, the auther was 44 but that's my impression.) with a cup of coffee, stretch those edgy wrinkles of your brain.

Nicely writien, short.
A friend of mine has a maxim:The shorter a math book, the more likely I am to read it.Artin's Galois Theory is certainly that.It is also an example of Artin's wonderful mathematical style.Gian-Carlo Rota, who took classes from Artin when he was at princeton, said that Artin's proofs were perfect, as though he had gone through all the available proofs to find *the* proof and that was the one he used.Rota felt that this left the student at a disadvantage in that he didn't know about the effort that went into the proof, nor why it is beautiful. I disagree:the proofs in Galois Theory have a certain indescribable beauty to them which left me awestruck at their simplicity.They seem to have all the requisite attributes (as laid out in Hardy's A Mathematician's apology) to be considered beautiful.These notes are by no means complete, but I would suggest them as a suplement to another treatment of field theory (for example, Dummit and Foote or Morandi even though they were based upon Artin's treatment).

Okay if you are interested in matehmatical "classics".
I agree, to some extent, with the recent two reviewers: Nobody can deny that Emil Artin was a great mathematician, having done a very good job in algebra. That does not necessarily mean his textbooks should be praised *ad infinitum*. I understand some classics remain valuable for an incredibly long period of time ("Morse theory" by Milnor is one of such landmarks that comes into my mind), but I feel scheptical if this one deserves that claim. This book is okay if you are interested in his writing style of many years ago, but not quite so if your main concern is to study Galois theory (or algebra: that makes no difference for that matter) efficiently and effectively. In that case you should turn to more modern textbooks like Cohn ("Algebra" published by Wiley.) ... Read more