Mark Ronan, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Illinois in Chicago, and Hon. Professor of Mathematics at University College London, follows a journey that has preoccupied some of the greatest mathematical brains of the last two centuries. It begins with a discovery by the precocious Frenchman Evariste Galois, who was to be killed in a duel in 1832 at the age of 20. His legacy, published 14 years later, was to set the study of symmetry on a new course and start a new branch of mathematics called group theory, which leads in the fourth essay to the emergence of the Monster.
credits
from Symmetry & The Monster,
released December 23, 2010
Originally broadcast on BBC Radio 3
Written & presented by Prof. Mark Ronan
Produced by Richard Bannerman