Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture

This post is a review of the novel, ‘Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture’, written by Apostolos Doxiadis. To read it in Hindi click here.

यथा शिखा मयूराणां नागानां मण्यो यथा।

तथा वेदाङ्गशास्त्राणां गणितं मूर्धनि स्थितम्।।

As the crest in the peacocks and jewel in the serpents, occupy the top position, 

So is mathematics among Vedangs, Shastras, and sciences. 

Vedanga Jyotisha, written around 1350 BC, 

Mathematics is the purest of all sciences and is the ultimate. ‘Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture’ is about romance of mathematics.

Christian Goldbach (March 18, 1690 – November 20, 1764) was an eighteenth century  German mathematician.  On 7th June 1742, he wrote a letter to the German mathematician Leonhard Euler stating an interesting phenomenon  regarding even numbers (a number divisible by two), without offering a proof: it was his  guess or a conjecture. He stated that any even number, greater than two, can always be written as a sum of two prime numbers namely numbers that are divisible by one or itself only.  This is known as the Goldbach’s conjecture. It is one of the oldest unanswered conjectures of the number theory - it has neither been proved nor disproved.

The novel 'Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture' revolves around it. It was written in Greek in 1992. translated into English and  published by Faber and Faber in 2000. Its publishers announced a prize of 10 million dollars, if anyone could prove or disprove Goldbach's Conjecture within two years of its publication. Needless to say that no one could win it.

It is a story of a nephew and his uncle Petros. Uncle is a kind of recluse; likes to be left alone; does not meet anyone; and is considered to be a failure by his family. The nephew is educated in mathematics and learns that his uncle was a young man of remarkable talent;  became the youngest professor of mathematics; and was well respected by mathematicians as well as by the community. But - why was he considered to be a failure in the family - is puzzling.  The story revolves around this mystery.

Uncle wanted to prove the Goldbach’s conjecture and spends his lifetime on it but is unsuccessful. The novel is a fiction but in narrating the story,  the author talks about the true incidents, events, and stories from the world of mathematics that makes it gripping. It is a very interesting book and provides thrill, even in a subject like mathematics. 

The book does not require any knowledge of mathematics. The basic knowledge that we all possess is sufficient.

The novel also make use of Godel’s Incompleteness theorem, but I am not going to tell you how it is used and what is the end of the story. I do not want to spoil your pleasure of reading the book.

This book is about romance of numbers and when you talk about this love, then how is it possible to ignore Ramanujam. He also pictures in the novel predominantly – with the famous incident of Hardy-Ramanujam taxi number. 

Hardy wrote his  classic 'A Mathematician Apology' in 1940, offering defence of the pursuit of pure mathematics and its value even if there is no immediate application. The novel begins with the following quote from Hardy’s classic, 

'Archimedes will be remembered when Aeschylus is forgotten because languages die and Mathematical ideas do not. Immortality may be a silly word but properly a mathematician has the best chance of whatever it may mean '

Read the book, gift it to your children – you never know, who may become next  Ramanujan or end up being immortal.

#BookReview #Mathematics