Abel's Proof by Peter Pesic

An Essay on the Sources and Meaning of Mathematical Unsolvability

A readable blend of history, biography and philosophy that traces the discovery and significance of the 19th-century result showing that general polynomial equations of degree five and higher cannot be solved by radicals; it follows the lives and mathematical work of the key figures who uncovered this limitation, explains the ideas about symmetry and structure that led to modern group and Galois theory, and reflects on what the proof reveals about mathematical creativity, the nature of proof, and how abstract concepts emerge from concrete problems.

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