Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture: A Novel of Mathematical Obsession

by Apostolos Doxiadis

Every family has its black sheep — in ours it was Uncle Petros.

‘Every person has the right to expose himself to whatever disappointment he chooses,’

But after a few months of tortuous happiness (‘alas, too few,’ my uncle said with a sigh), Isolde abandoned the family home and the arms of her boy-lover in order to marry a dashing lieutenant of the Prussian artillery. Petros was, of course, heartbroken.