Apostolos Doxiadis

Christos H. Papadimitriou

Recounts, in graphic novel format, the life of Bertrand Russell, mathematician and philospher, and his life-long struggle to achieve perfect logic and ultimate truth.

An Epic Search for Truth

Logicomix

In the tradition of Fermat's Last Theorem and Einstein's Dreams, a novel about mathematical obsession. Petros Papachristos devotes the early part of his life trying to prove one of the greatest mathematical challenges of all time: Goldbach's Conjecture, the deceptively simple claim that every even number greater than two is the sum of two primes. Against a tableau of famous historical figures-among them G.H. Hardy, the self-taught Indian genius Srinivasa Ramanujan, and a young Kurt Godel-Petros works furiously to prove the notoriously difficult conjecture. Decades later, his ambitious young nephew drives the defeated mathematician back into the hunt to prove Goldbach's Conjecture. . . but at the cost of the old man's sanity, and perhaps even his life.

A Novel of Mathematical Obsession

Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture

El Tio Petros y La Conjetura de Goldbach

Oncle Petros et la conjecture de Goldbach

Petros Amca ve Goldbach Sanisi

Barry Mazur

Circles Disturbed brings together important thinkers in mathematics, history, and philosophy to explore the relationship between mathematics and narrative. The book's title recalls the last words of the great Greek mathematician Archimedes before he was slain by a Roman soldier--"Don't disturb my circles"--words that seem to refer to two radically different concerns: that of the practical person living in the concrete world of reality, and that of the theoretician lost in a world of abstraction. Stories and theorems are, in a sense, the natural languages of these two worlds--stories representing the way we act and interact, and theorems giving us pure thought, distilled from the hustle and bustle of reality. Yet, though the voices of stories and theorems seem totally different, they share profound connections and similarities. A book unlike any other, Circles Disturbed delves into topics such as the way in which historical and biographical narratives shape our understanding of mathematics and mathematicians, the development of "myths of origins" in mathematics, the structure and importance of mathematical dreams, the role of storytelling in the formation of mathematical intuitions, the ways mathematics helps us organize the way we think about narrative structure, and much more. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Amir Alexander, David Corfield, Peter Galison, Timothy Gowers, Michael Harris, David Herman, Federica La Nave, G.E.R. Lloyd, Uri Margolin, Colin McLarty, Jan Christoph Meister, Arkady Plotnitsky, and Bernard Teissier.

The Interplay of Mathematics and Narrative

Circles Disturbed

Three brothers. One mafia curse. A gripping mafia thriller, at once a suspenseful crime adventure and ingenious fable Ben Frank has blood on his hands. He knows that he has killed a man in a bar-room brawl. He knows that as an Italian immigrant in turn-of-the-century New York, life is tough. But what he doesn’t know is that the victim’s father, a Mafia boss, will settle a curse, a ‘maledizione’, on Frank’s family; that the shoemaker’s three sons will each die in their forty-second year. Following the varying fortunes of the shoemaker’s sons – Al, Nick and Leo Frank – as well as their nemesis, a gangster by the name of ‘Terranova’, Three Little Pigs grows into a dazzling meditation on chance, destiny, choice and their consequences. At once a gripping thriller and an investigation of character and fate, this is a revenge tragedy written by a master at the very peak of his powers. Can the brothers beat the curse? From Apostolos Doxiadis, author of Logicomix, comes a unique and completely absorbing crime novel, sure to appeal to fans of Mario Puzo, Don DeLillo and Carl Hiaasen. ‘Brilliantly entertaining and suspenseful – imagine the Brothers Grimm crossed with Guys and Dolls.’ Bestselling author Tom Holland

Three Little Pigs: A Novel

Nel 1742 il matematico Christian Goldbach, tutore del figlio dello Zar, formulò una congettura secondo la quale ogni numero pari maggiore di due sarebbe la somma di due numeri primi. Ma nel corso della sua vita Goldbach non potè trovare una dimostrazione efficace della sua intuizione. Così, per oltre 250 anni, la sua congettura è rimasta tale. Fino a che zio Petros si è messo in testa che proprio lui sarebbe riuscito a dimostrare che Goldbach aveva ragione. Solo suo nipote, come lui appassionato di matematica, è incuriosito dalla figura di quello zio strano, solitario, silenzioso, sommerso dalle sue carte. E sarà proprio il nipote a condividere l’ossessione per la soluzione della congettura e a scoprire il mistero della vita dello zio e la storia del suo perduto amore.Un romanzo straordinario, un thriller matematico in cui la ricerca della soluzione di un problema scientifico si sposa a una storia personale avvincente e carica di umanità. Un connubio inedito tra matematica e letteratura che è diventato un successo mondiale tradotto in quindici lingue

Zio Petros e la congettura di Goldbach

Christos Papadimitriou

This exceptional graphic novel recounts the spiritual odyssey of philosopher Bertrand Russell. In his agonized search for absolute truth, Russell crosses paths with legendary thinkers like Gottlob Frege, David Hilbert, and Kurt Gödel, and finds a passionate student in the great Ludwig Wittgenstein. But his most ambitious goal-to establish unshakable logical foundations of mathematics-continues to loom before him. Through love and hate, peace and war, Russell persists in the dogged mission that threatens to claim both his career and his personal happiness, finally driving him to the brink of insanity. This story is at the same time a historical novel and an accessible explication of some of the biggest ideas of mathematics and modern philosophy. With rich characterizations and expressive, atmospheric artwork, the book spins the pursuit of these ideas into a highly satisfying tale. Probing and ingeniously layered, the book throws light on Russell's inner struggles while setting them in the context of the timeless questions he spent his life trying to answer. At its heart, Logicomix is a story about the conflict between an ideal rationality and the unchanging, flawed fabric of reality.

Apostolos Doxiadis

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