or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
 
More Buying Choices
17 used & new from £2.86
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
Symmetry and the Monster: One of the greatest quests of mathematics
 
 
Share your own customer images
Search inside this book

Symmetry and the Monster: One of the greatest quests of mathematics (Hardcover)

by Mark Ronan (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
RRP: £14.99
Price: £11.49 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save: £3.50 (23%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
Usually dispatched within 1 to 3 weeks.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.

6 new from £7.98 11 used from £2.86
Other Editions: RRP: Our Price: Other Offers:
Paperback (New edition) £8.99 £5.78 32 used & new from £3.08

Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this book with Finding Moonshine: A Mathematician's Journey Through Symmetry by Marcus du Sautoy

Symmetry and the Monster: One of the greatest quests of mathematics + Finding Moonshine: A Mathematician's Journey Through Symmetry
Price For Both: £17.31

One of these items ships sooner than the other. Show details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Fearless Symmetry: Exposing the Hidden Patterns of Numbers (New Edition): Exposing the Hidden Patterns of Numbers

Fearless Symmetry: Exposing the Hidden Patterns of Numbers (New Edition): Exposing the Hidden Patterns of Numbers

by Avner Ash
5.0 out of 5 stars (1)  £9.10
Unknown Quantity

Unknown Quantity

by John Derbyshire
4.2 out of 5 stars (4)  £6.49
Finding Moonshine: A Mathematician's Journey Through Symmetry

Finding Moonshine: A Mathematician's Journey Through Symmetry

by Marcus du Sautoy
3.9 out of 5 stars (8)  £5.82
Why Beauty is Truth: The History of Symmetry

Why Beauty is Truth: The History of Symmetry

by Ian Stewart
5.0 out of 5 stars (2)  £7.99
The Poincare Conjecture: In Search of the Shape of the Universe

The Poincare Conjecture: In Search of the Shape of the Universe

by Donal O'Shea
3.4 out of 5 stars (5)  £6.47
› Explore similar items

Product details

  • Hardcover: 272 pages
  • Publisher: OUP Oxford (18 May 2006)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0192807226
  • ISBN-13: 978-0192807229
  • Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 12.4 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 441,279 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #94 in  Books > Science & Nature > History & Philosophy > History of Mathematics

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

  • See Complete Table of Contents

Product Description

John H. Conway, F.R.S.

'Mark Ronan graphically describes not only the last few decades of the chase...but also some of the more interesting byways.' --This text refers to the Paperback edition.


Review

...includes entertaining glimpses of the personalities involved ...but best of all gives an admirable amount of detail... (TLS )

a fascinating book that will appeal to anyone with an appetite for exploration and discovery, and which is accessble to all.
See all Product Description
Inside This Book (Learn More)
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
Search inside this book:

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

 (What's this?)
Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
 
group theory
symmetry
mathematics
group
the monster
sporadic
simple groups
history of mathematics

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Symmetry and the Monster: One of the greatest quests of mathematics
65% buy the item featured on this page:
Symmetry and the Monster: One of the greatest quests of mathematics 4.0 out of 5 stars (5)
£11.49
Finding Moonshine: A Mathematician's Journey Through Symmetry
13% buy
Finding Moonshine: A Mathematician's Journey Through Symmetry 3.9 out of 5 stars (8)
£5.82
Why Beauty is Truth: The History of Symmetry
10% buy
Why Beauty is Truth: The History of Symmetry 5.0 out of 5 stars (2)
£7.99
Unknown Quantity
7% buy
Unknown Quantity 4.2 out of 5 stars (4)
£6.49
Explore similar items
 

Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Beauty and the Beast, 19 April 2007
By A. Rodgers "angusrod" (London, England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
They always say "mathematics is not a spectator sport", and this is true, but in reading this book, I felt I was as close as possible to being an enthralled spectator at a great game that I would have little or no idea how to play myself. I almost literally couldn't put the book down.

The author takes great pains to make the subject as simple as possible, but not simpler (to echo the quotation from Einstein which heads the penultimate chapter). Such a compromise cannot be perfect, and as someone who knows a little maths, I found it mildly irritating to have to replace each occurrence of the phrase "atom of symmetry" with "simple group", rather than have the metaphor explained once, and the correct term used thereafter. On the other hand, I was quite happy to keep reading about "cross-sections", rather than have to keep stumbling over the phrase "involution centralizer" and be thereby reminded of how little I know about group theory! If I would take issue with any of the author's choices of vocabulary, it is his use of the term "deconstruction" instead of "decomposition", which is an equally familiar word, with one less letter (but one more syllable), and it is one which doesn't cause the susceptible reader to imagine that Jacques Derrida was somehow involved in the project. (God forbid!)

Each reader, at whatever level of knowledge, will have his or her own preference as to the appropriate amount of technical vocabulary to use, and the author has clearly struck a considered balance in this respect. The result is, I think, an easy read even for complete non-mathematicians, but which still contains plenty to fascinate even the professional who is not a specialist in this most specialised of areas.

It is, indeed, a specialised field; the classification of finite simple groups is not your average piece of mathematical research. I was already aware of the length of the famous (notorious?) Feit-Thompson "odd order paper", but was not aware that, at 255 pages (occupying an entire issue of a mathematical journal), this was a mere bagatelle compared to some of the prodigiously (monstrously?) long papers and typescripts (some not yet published, and never likely to be) which played an essential role in this heroic project. One shivers when one reads of the fears of those involved that the dismayingly formidable techniques required for this area of mathematics - and apparently for it alone - would not be passed on orally to future generations, and the understanding of them would be lost, like that of hieroglyphics. (A second vast project, the Revision of the Classification, is still underway to try to ensure that this does not happen.)

But often the best way to understand something is to look at extreme cases, and I think it is no accident that this is the best popularisation of mathematics that I have read. Something of the soul of mathematics is laid bare here.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Too simplified?, 23 Mar 2008
By Ditlev Brodersen (Aarhus, Denmark) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Symmetry and the Monster: One of the greatest quests of mathematics (Paperback)
Reading this book left me somewhat frustrated, as the need for popularisation of a very difficult subject leads the author to cover the maths too lightly, in my view. The maths in the book is very easy to follow but unfortunately the result is that you get very little insight into what this is really about. However, there are some very nice and elaborate descriptions of historic events and past mathematicians, so basically I think this book will cater for two types of readers: 1) Mathematicians with a good insight into group theory who know what this is all about and want a quick and entertaining recap of the history of the field, and 2) people who don't care about the maths, but enjoy the history of how scientists discover stuff. For the rest of us, who are after popular presentations of real science, I think there are much better alternatives.
Comment Comment (1) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Aptly titled, 1 Jan 2008
By Matt Westwood (Reading, UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: Symmetry and the Monster: One of the greatest quests of mathematics (Paperback)
Popularisations of mathematics are difficult to do well because you need to have a fair amount of the language of maths under your belt before you can follow the arguments. To that end, putting across the ideas in a non-technical manner needs a skill that few possess.

Ronan does a sparkling job here. The basic concepts of group theory are glossed over without going into tedious detail (and despite my affection for this particular branch of maths, I consider a lot of the detail *extremely* tedious), and once the story gets under way, the ideas are brought forward in a flowing, almost breathlessly excited, style which is infectious.

The author himself was involved in this stupendous quest of classification, so he knows what he's talking about.

One of the aspects of such a popular account is the bringing to life of the people behind the name, many of whom I'd never heard, quite a few of whom I'd already encountered in my travels through an undergrad degree in mathematics. Neither does the author shrink from confronting the political circumstances in which certain of the mathematicians were working, which adds a further dimension of interest to the tale.

The first thing one wants to do having read this book is to go and find out the mathematics behind it all. Be warned: it is difficult area to get to grips with. The basics are simple but the detail is diabolical.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Expounds the history, not the mathematics
This book describes the people, places and events that form the history of the classification of finite simple groups, with a particular emphasis on one finite simple group in... Read more
Published 1 month ago by M. Cann

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent overview of a very technical subject
There are many topics in science that have been successfully translated into the popular science literature. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Dr. P. P. Cook

Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
   
Related forums

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject














i.e., each product must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback

Ad

Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.