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SIMON SINGH

Fermat’s Last Theorem

THE STORY OF A RIDDLE THAT CONFOUNDED THE

WORLD’S GREATEST MINDS FOR 358 YEARS

William Collins

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in paperback by Fourth Estate in 2002 (reprinted 4 times)

First published in Great Britain in 1997 by Fourth Estate

Copyright © 1997 by Simon Singh

Foreword copyright © 1997 by John Lynch

Line illustrations by Jed Mugford

The right of Simon Singh to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9781841157917

Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2012 ISBN: 9780007381999

Version: 2017-08-14

In memory

of

Pakhar Singh Birring

CONTENTS

We finally met across a room, not crowded, but large enough to hold the entire Mathematics Department at Princeton on their occasions of great celebration. On that particular afternoon, there were not so very many people around, but enough for me to be uncertain as to which one was Andrew Wiles.