Proof; A biography about a made-up mathematician whose influence went beyond numbers.

From: The Washington Post | Date: October 15, 2006| Author: | Copyright information

THE ARTIST AND THE MATHEMATICIAN

The Story of Nicolas Bourbaki, the Genius

Mathematician Who Never Existed

By Amir D. Aczel

Thunder's Mouth. 239 pp. $23.95

Nicolas Bourbaki did not exist. He was dreamt up by a playful clique of French math professors in the mid-1930s who used the Bourbaki pseudonym to tear mathematics down to its foundations. That collective tried to root out the imprecision that festered underneath the proofs of the day and replace it with more rigorous underpinnings. In so doing, the nonexistent mathematician produced more important and more original work than most ...

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