Apostolos Doxiadis

Uncle Petros and Goldbach’s Conjecture

In a letter to Leonhard Euler, dated 7 June 1742, Christian Goldbach, a not especially eminent mathematician, speculated that every even number greater than 2 was the sum of at least one pair of primes (a prime being an integer divisible solely by itself and 1). Thus 10 = 7+3, 32 = 13+19, 84 = 67+17, ad infinitum. To the great Euler, it probably seemed a trifling puzzle not worth racking his brain over…

Reviews, Uncle Petros and Goldbach’s Conjecture


One of the most attractive developments of the literature of the Nineties was the rapprochement between the arts and the sciences. A series of humane and graceful texts appeared whose purpose was to convey to an audience with no special scientific or mathematical competence some of the beauty and resonance of those subjects…

Reviews, Uncle Petros and Goldbach’s Conjecture


‘A mathematical conjecture unsolved for two centuries; a mathematical genius uncle driven mad trying to solve it; an ambiguous relation with a mathematically-minded nephew; and acute human observation all come together in Uncle Petros to make a very funny, tender, charming and, to my mind, irresistible novel.’

Reviews, Uncle Petros and Goldbach’s Conjecture