Prime suspects : the anatomy of integers and permutations
- Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2019
- 225 p. ; ill. (chiefly col.), 25 cm
Includes bibliographies.
An outrageous graphic novel that investigates key concepts in mathematicsIntegers and permutations--two of the most basic mathematical objects--are born of different fields and analyzed with different techniques. Yet when the Mathematical Sciences Investigation team of crack forensic mathematicians, led by Professor Gauss, begins its autopsies of the victims of two seemingly unrelated homicides, Arnie Integer and Daisy Permutation, they discover the most extraordinary similarities between the structures of each body.Prime Suspects is a graphic novel that takes you on a voyage of forensic discovery, exploring some of the most fundamental ideas in mathematics.Travel with Detective von Neumann as he leaves no clue unturned, from shepherds' huts in the Pyrenees to secret societies in the cafés of Paris, from the hidden codes in the music of the stones to the grisly discoveries in Finite Fields. Tremble at the ferocity of the believers in deep and rigid abstraction. Feel the pain as you work with our young heroine, Emmy Germain, as she blazes a trail for women in mathematical research and learns from Professor Gauss, the greatest forensic detective of them all.Beautifully drawn and wittily and exquisitely detailed, Prime Suspects is unique, astonishing, and outrageous--a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience mathematics like never before.