The Parrot's Theorem

The Parrot's Theorem

infobox Book |
name = The Parrot's Theorem
title_orig =
translator = Frank Wynne


image_caption = First edition cover
author = Denis Guedj
cover_artist =
country = France
language = French
series =
genre = Novel
publisher = Weidenfeld & Nicolson
release_date = 1998 (translation 15 June 2000)
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages = 416 pp (hardback edition)
isbn = ISBN 0-297-64578-1 (hardback edition)
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"The Parrot's Theorem" is a French novel written by Denis Guedj and published in 1998. An English translation was published in 2000.

Plot summary

The plot revolves around a household in Paris: Mr Ruche, an elderly wheelchair-bound bookseller; his employee and housemate Perrette; and Perrette's three children - teenage twins and young Max who is deaf. Max liberates a talking parrot at the market and Mr Ruche receives a consignment of mathematical books from an old friend, who has lived in Brazil for decades without any contact between the two.

The household sets up its own exploration of mathematics in order to crack the code of the last messages from Mr Ruche's old friend, now apparently murdered. Mathematical topics covered in the book include primes and factors; irrational and amicable numbers; the discoveries of Pythagoras, Archimedes and Euclid; and the problems of squaring the circle and doubling the cube.

The mathematics is real mathematics, woven into an historical sequence as a series of intriguing problems, bringing their own stories with them.

References

* [http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/generalfiction/0,6121,353174,00.html Imaginary numbers] , A review of The Parrot's Theorem by Simon Singh.


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно сделать НИР?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Denis Guedj — (1940 – April 24, 2010[1]) was a French novelist and a professor of the History of Science at Paris VIII University. He was born in Setif. He spent many years devising courses and games to teach adults and children math. He is the author of… …   Wikipedia

  • List of mathematics articles (T) — NOTOC T T duality T group T group (mathematics) T integration T norm T norm fuzzy logics T schema T square (fractal) T symmetry T table T theory T.C. Mits T1 space Table of bases Table of Clebsch Gordan coefficients Table of divisors Table of Lie …   Wikipedia

  • Frank Wynne — literary translator and writer. Biography Early life and university Frank Wynne was born in 1962 and grew up in Strandhill, Co. Sligo. His father with T R Henn and others was among the founding members of the Yeats Summer School in Sligo in 1959 …   Wikipedia

  • Frank Wynne — Pour les articles homonymes, voir Wynne. Frank Wynne (1962 ) est un traducteur et écrivain irlandais. Il fait ses études à la Sligo Grammar School et à Trinity College (Dublin) avant de s installer en France en 1984. Entre 1987 et 1994, il… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Perl — This article is about the programming language. For other uses, see Perl (disambiguation). Perl Paradig …   Wikipedia

  • Philosophy of mathematics — The philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that studies the philosophical assumptions, foundations, and implications of mathematics. The aim of the philosophy of mathematics is to provide an account of the nature and methodology of …   Wikipedia

  • MESOPOTAMIA — The original article in the first edition of the Encyclopaedia Judaica traced Mesopotamian history to its earliest beginnings and provided a detailed survey of Mesopotamian literature and institutions. With the availability of such tools as J.… …   Encyclopedia of Judaism

  • Info-gap decision theory — is a non probabilistic decision theory that seeks to optimize robustness to failure – or opportuneness for windfall – under severe uncertainty,[1][2] in particular applying sensitivity analysis of the stability radius type[3] to perturbations in… …   Wikipedia

  • List of fictional books — A fictional book is a non existent book created specifically for (i.e. within) a work of fiction. This is not a list of works of fiction (i.e., actual novels, mysteries, etc), but rather imaginary books that do not actually exist.UsesSuch a book… …   Wikipedia

  • Bird hybrid — A bird hybrid is basically a bird that has two different species as parents. The resulting bird can present with any combination of characters from the parent species, from totally identical to completely different. Usually, the bird hybrid shows …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”