Proofs from THE BOOK is a book of mathematical proofs by Martin Aigner and Günter M. Ziegler. The book is dedicated to the mathematician Paul Erdős, who often referred to "The Book" in which God keeps the most elegant 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."[1]

Proofs from THE BOOK
AuthorsMartin Aigner, Günter M. Ziegler
IllustratorK. H. Hofmann
LanguageEnglish
SubjectMathematical proofs
PublisherSpringer
Publication date
1998
Pages239
ISBN3-540-63698-6

Content

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Proofs from THE BOOK contains 32 sections (45 in the sixth edition), each devoted to one theorem but often containing multiple proofs and related results. It spans a broad range of mathematical fields: number theory, geometry, analysis, combinatorics and graph theory. Erdős himself made many suggestions for the book, but died before its publication. The book is illustrated by Karl Heinrich Hofmann [de]. It has gone through six editions in English, and has been translated into Persian, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Korean, Turkish, Russian and Spanish.

In November 2017 the American Mathematical Society announced the 2018 Leroy P. Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition to be awarded to Aigner and Ziegler for this book.

The proofs include:

References

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  1. ^ Klarreich, Erica (2018-03-19). "In Search of God's Perfect Proofs". Quanta Magazine. Archived from the original on 2018-05-30. Retrieved 2022-07-12.