Proofs from THE BOOK

Common card · No. 404218

Proofs from THE BOOK is a book of mathematical proofs by Martin Aigner and Günter M. Ziegler, first published in 1998. The book is inspired by and named after an expression used by the mathematician Paul Erdős, who often referred to "The Book" in which God kept the best proof of each mathematical theorem. During a lecture in 1985, Erdős said, "You don't have to believe in God, but you should believe in The Book." The greatest praise Erdős gave to mathematical work was to proclaim it "straight from the Book". Aigner and Zeigler proposed to Erdős a real book that would be "a first (and very modest) approximation to 'The Book'". Erdős had many suggestions for proofs that should be included, and would have been a co-author except that he died in 1996. Proofs from THE BOOK is instead dedicated to his memory. Including its original publication, Proofs from THE BOOK has had six editions in English, and has been translated into Persian, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Polish...

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