Symmetry and the Monster: the Story of One of the Greatest Quests of Mathematics

Oxford University Press (United Kingdom), 2007.. Very Good/Unknown. 12 mo., softcover, near fine in blue wraps. Giftable. (272 pp) Imagine a giant snowflake in 196, 884 dimensions. This is the story of a mathematical quest that began two hundred years ago in revolutionary France, led to the biggest collaboration ever between mathematicians across the world, and revealed the 'Monster'-not monstrous at all, but a structure of exquisite beauty and complexity. Told here for the first time in accessible prose, it is a story that involves brilliant yet tragic characters, curious number 'coincidences' that led to breakthroughs in the mathematics of symmetry, and strange crystals that reach into many dimensions. And it is a story that is not yet over, for we have yet to understand the deep significance of the Monster-and its tantalizing hints of connections with the physical structure of spacetime. Once we understand the full nature of the Monster, we may well have revealed a whole new and deeper understanding of the nature of our Universe.