3

A previous teacher of mine had a book that had proofs to well known mathematical formulas/ideas but they were either proved incorrectly or were proved to be something else (i.e. if $x=y$ but we prove $x=2y$ using false assumptions that cleverly look right).

I would like to know books that deal with such kinds of problems. Thanks.

frog0101
  • 137

1 Answers1

5

Well, I had this book called “Magnificient Mistakes in Mathematics” written by Posamentier and Lehmann and I should say that I absolutely loved it. Gave a great insight into the mistakes that even famous mathematicians did in their work. A book review is given here.

Why go so far? Take our own MSE collection of fake proofs!

Enjoy!

  • Also see here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_disproved_mathematical_ideas –  Dec 30 '17 at 10:50
  • @frog0101 You can accept my answer if it helped you. –  Dec 31 '17 at 09:30