The Mathematical Century by Piergiorgio Odifreddi, translated by Arturo Sangalli, Princeton University Press, $27.95/£18.95, ISBN 069109294X Reviewed by Ben Longstaff
THE polymath Johann Goethe thought that mathematicians were like the French, pointing out: “Whatever you say to them they translate into their own language, and forthwith it is something entirely different.” He had good reason to say this. Rare is the person who can elegantly translate mathematicians’ arcana back into the language of mortals.
Piergiorgio Odifreddi is a professor of mathematical logic, and The Mathematical Century gives us his selection of the subject’s crowning achievements since 1900, when maths…
