Evariste Galois, 1811-1832

by Laura Toti Rigatelli, John Denton (Translator)

Evariste Galois' short life was lived against the turbulent background of the restoration of the Bourbons to the throne of France, the 1830 revolution in Paris and the accession of Louis-Phillipe. This new and scrupulously researched biography of the founder of modern algebra sheds much light on a life led with great intensity and a death met tragically under dark circumstances. Sorting speculation from documented fact, it offers the fullest and most exacting account ever written of Galois' life and work. It took more than seventy years to fully understand the French mathematician's first memoire (published in 1846) which formulated the famous "Galois theory" concerning the solvability of algebraic equations by radicals, from which group theory would follow. Obscurities in his other writings - memoires and numerous fragments of extant papers - persist and his ideas challenge mathematicians to this day. Thus scholars will welcome those chapters devoted specifically to explicating all aspects of Galois' work. A comprehensive bibliography enumerates studies by and also those about the mathematician."

Genres: Biography, Mathematics, Nonfiction

163 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Galois life can be a good example of how life can be very unfair. Everyone reading this probably knows that Galois made ground breaking discoveries in Algebra as a teenager. I find it quite sad that several attempts were made to get the great mathematicians of the day, such as Fourier and Cauchy (pg 41) to read Galois work (when Galois was still alive), but some showed little interest in others works, while others found Galois new way of mathematics too difficult to follow. If Galois work was understood, what a different life he would have had. What other discoveries would he have made? He most certainly would have lived a longer life.

Galois came to the conclusion that he would never be recognized as a mathematician during his life (he was positive his ideas were ground breaking, but his peers would never understand) as well as be with the women he loved Stephanie, he devoted all of his time to his political ideology (pg 107) If you read Pages 109 to 1014, the book goes into detail about the so called "duel" Galois would have (the duel was with pistols, not swords) that he would die from. The author states several versions of what the duel was about and for, from various biographers of Galois. I won't spoil it for you, but I found it the most shocking part of the book. Perhaps, even a little anticlimactic.

This is a very small book, the biography is only 114 pages and the discussion of Galois mathematical works is 24 pages.

[Angelino Desmet]

For the love of Galois, why is Évariste misspelled?

[Nikhil Gupta · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this book up hoping it would give me some perspectives towards Galois' works. But the book focuses largely on the French politics during the time which is natural as Galois was involved in it, which unfortunately made the book unreadable and dry.