![]() ![]() Initially, it’s a refreshing alternative to most pop-maths books, which understandably make every effort to hold your hand as they guide you through tricky concepts. In a tumble of dialogue they bat about phrases like “modulo minimal regularity bounds” and “Moser-style iteration scheme” – essentially incomprehensible to the average reader, but they sweep you along for the ride. The pair are wrestling with a tricky case – not a murder, but the intricate properties of the Boltzmann equation, a statistical description of how particles in a gas behave. The book opens like a film noir, as Villani sits sprawling in his office with intellectual partner Clément Mouhot. ![]() The book covers the few years leading up to his Fields medal win, giving a flavour of the frantic thought processes behind the work that ultimately won him the prize. Reading his new book, Birth of a Theorem, I instantly recognised that same rhythm. ![]() As we chatted, I was charmed by the French mathematician’s rapid-fire way of speaking, a staccato rhythm that jumped from topic to topic without pausing for breath. ![]()
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