"Fermat's Enigma" by Simon Singh

I love mathematics. There is something so truly exhilerating in the study of mathematics that I find completely impossible to deny. I can think of no other discipline that deals in such concrete absolutes as math. Every other field deals with approximations and theories, whereas mathematics deals in the realm of irrefutable logic. As a result, a proof becomes a thing of beauty in it's elegance and completeness. I can think of many times in my study of mathematics where I have been left speechless and left to wonder, "How could that possibly be? How could the universe possibly be so ordered?"

This book touched that chord with me. It was exciting to watch the book slowly progress towards the conclusion and conquering of something so old as Fermat's Last Theorem. The thing that has always struck me about this theorem is that it is not very useful. It's a theorem which really leads to no practical application, yet the number of man hours that have been spent trying to solve it are incalculable. Why have people sought to conquer such a useless theorem? It's the same reason people climb Mt. Everest.