What is it like to be a 'rock-star mathematician' praised by Patti Smith? How does an inspired mathematical idea become a published article? Cédric Villani received a Fields Medal in 2010 for his work on Landau damping and the Boltzmann equation; here he looks back at the development of this research, presenting emails exchanged with his collaborator Clement Mouhot and setting his academic work in the context of his everyday life.

Product Description: Fifty years ago Francis Crick and James D. Watson proposed the double helix model for the DNA molecule. They believed they had, as Crick put it, discovered the “secret of life,” and many agreed. But in the intervening years, science has marched—sometimes leaped—forward, and now the question “What is life?” must be posed once again...read more