This review is written by Nik – a first year undergraduate student at LJMU (at the time of review).

I was so moved and excited by my reading of the book that I couldn’t help but recommend it to my 13 year old brother, who also loved it. Now I am writing this review to hopefully convince someone else to read and enjoy Uncle Petros and the Goldbach Conjecture, just as we have. The book tells the story of a great battle that a mathematician undertook, devoting his life to prove the elusive Goldbach’s Conjecture. Why, you might ask, I called it ‘elusive’?

Let’s start with mathematics you need to know in a hands-on way. There are some numbers like six, we can arrange them to form rectangles of different shapes. In the even group, every number but 2, falls in the category.

There are some numbers, like seven, where we can only create one arrangement – a single long rectangle. These numbers are called prime, examples are; 2, 3, 5, 7, 11 etc.

Out of all even numbers, only 2 falls into the prime category. Out of all odd numbers, some like 7 are prime and some like 15 are not prime. Now we are ready for the Goldbach’s Conjecture. Put the number 2 aside. We know that it has a dual existence, being both even and prime. For now, it plays its role as a prime number. Take any even number other than 2, say 8. We can write it as the sum of two p. rime numbers.

8 = 3 + 5

Sometimes, the two prime numbers are the same. For example,

18 = 13 + 5

18 = 11 + 7

The Goldbach’s Conjecture doesn’t mind this diversity. What matters is that putting 2 aside, every other even number can be written as the sum of two prime numbers. However, this is just a statement based on no one ever finding any number which cannot be written as a sum of two primes. Can all even numbers greater than 2 truly be written as a sum of two primes, no matter how large they get? No one knows. That is why it is called Goldbach’s Conjecture. That is why it is so elusive, since we might easily believe that it is true, but no one has proven it yet! Even Uncle Petros!

The fictional story of Uncle Petros and the Goldbach Conjecture explores what it means to be a mathematician, and the struggles and difficulties they must face in the pursuit of greater understanding. The author presents the characters’ (yes, there are more than one characters involved) emotional journeys and changing mindsets towards mathematics with skill and ensures that the reader is always engaged with the plot. Anyone remotely interested in mathematics or mathematical research, regardless of their background in mathematics, would greatly enjoy reading this excellent book. If you don’t believe me, ask my brother!

The author of this book is Apostolos Doxiadis, who is also the co-author of another amzing work of art, Logicomix, that soon will be introduced here. Stay alert!

Extra Notes – You might have been surprised why we didn’t list 1 in the odd number group. To do that, we need to see the odd number and even number in terms of divisibility by 2. The ones divisible by 2 are even, the ones that aren’t divisible by 2, are odd. In fact, yes, 1 should be listed as an odd number. And 0 should be listed as an even number. Were you as surprised by not seeing 0 in the list of even numbers as you were not seeing 1 in the list of odd numbers?