Congruence surds and Fermat's last theorem

by Max M. Munk

33 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1977

Reviews

[Brian Hutchings]

If monsieur Munk is alive, he is over a hundred;
this book was published, as I recall, in '76, although
I came across it in the late '90s. Now, he is perfectly qualified
to be an amateur a la Fermat, having been an engineer
at NACA, the predecessor to NASA, where he worked
on aerodynamics. His main claim to fame is an early analysis
of (2d) sections of airfoils.

He wrote the first introduction for laymen on aerodynamics; since
it was published in the Great Depression, he used a "vanity press,"
Vantage Books, which he also used for his alleged proof
of Fermat's "last" theorem.

The insight that I got into Fermat is not acutally stated in the book --
-- it goes with monsieur Munk's *vitae* --
suffice to say that the undisclosed theorem was probably amongst
his first insights into Diophantine eequations. You could guess that
it was a key to his Method.

The book is quite elementary and enjoyably written,
occaisionally funny and quite a tour de force. Now, although
Fermat made no known errors -- unless possibly,
you question the veracity of Wiles' proof of FLT, tee-hee --
that is not to say that monsieur Munk made no mistakes.

Underwood Dudley includes Munk in his chapter, in _Mathematical Cranks_
(from MAA.org [*]),
of "fermatistes," which you will have seen if you have ever used any
of the sci.math newsgroups. As he admitted, when I wrote to him,
it was obvious that he did not read the whole, slim book, but
jumped to the pen-intimate section from the table of content,
where the nib of the matter would be written.

There *is* a problem, there, but it may just be a peculiarity
of "English as a second language," because everything else is beautiful,
including the remaining chapters that explain the workings of congruence surds,
which is Munk's coinage.

Numbertheory is part of the *quadrivium*, which is Latin for *mathematica*,
which is the four subjects of classical Greek science; as an example
of this "modular arithmetic," what is the meaning
of Platform Nine & Three-quarters?

Get this book back into print!

* The MAA's *Mathematics Magazine* is fantastic, and accessible at any level.