What is the least possible number of colours needed to fill in any map, so that neighbouring countries are always coloured differently? It sounded simple, but professional mathematicians were to spend over a century solving the puzzle.
Introducing the mathematicians behind the mathematics, among them a bishop, an astronomer, a botanist, an obsessive golfer and a bridegroom who spent his honeymoon colouring maps.
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This, we can see now, was a landmark moment in mathematics: the moment we realised that there are proofs out there so complicated, that publishing them in full is impractical, working through them by hand is impossible, and explaining them to the public requires writers of a very special stamp indeed. (Robin Wilson, I should add, is most definitely one of them.) The publishers, in deciding to make a black-and-white book out of a colour problem, have not only done justice to Wilson's illustrations, but have also created one of the most visually arresting science books around. --Simon Ings
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