In 1824 a young Norwegian named Niels Henrik Abel proved conclusively that algebraic equations of the fifth order are not solvable in radicals. In this book Peter Pesic shows what an important event this was in the history of thought. He also presents it as a remarkable human story. Abel was twenty-one when he self-published his proof, and he died five years later, poor and depressed, just before the proof started to receive wide acclaim. Abel's attempts to reach out to the mathematical elite of the day had been spurned, and he was unable to find a position that would allow him to work in...

Though James Clerk Maxwell (1831 1879) is best remembered for his epochal achievements in electricity and magnetism, he was wide-ranging in his scientific investigations, and he came to brilliant conclusions in virtually all of them. As James R. Newman put it, Maxwell "combined a profound physical intuition, an exquisite feeling for the relationship of objects, with a formidable mathematical capacity to establish orderly connections among diverse phenomena. This blending of the concrete and the abstract was the chief characteristic of almost all his researches."
Maxwell's work on heat...

1824 gelang einem jungen Norweger namens Niels Henrik Abel der endgultige Beweis, dass algebraische Gleichungen funften Grades im allgemeinen nicht durch Wurzeln auflosbar sind. In diesem Buch zeigt Peter Pesic auf, welche Bedeutung diesem Ereignis in der Geschichte des Denkens zukommt. Es ist aber auch eine bemerkenswerte menschliche Geschichte, denn Abel war einundzwanzig, als er seinen Beweis auf eigene Kosten veroffentlichte, und funf Jahre spater starb er, verarmt und deprimiert, kurz bevor sein Beweis begann, weite Anerkennung zu finden. Abels Versuche, die mathematische Elite seiner...