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Books and Arts

Nature 451, 629 (7 February 2008) | doi:10.1038/451629a; Published online 6 February 2008

Open Innovation Challenges

Multi-dimensional lives

Mark Ronan1

BOOK REVIEWEDFinding Moonshine: A Mathematician's Journey Through Symmetry

by Marcus du Sautoy

Fourth Estate/Harper: 2008. 400 pp/384 pp. £18.99/$25.95

The mathematics of symmetry emerged from the work of Evariste Galois, the young genius who died aged just 20 in 1832 after being shot in a duel. His tragic story, placed in the context of French history and revolution, is retold here in Marcus du Sautoy's follow-up to The Music of the Primes.