Volume 50, Number 9 · May 29, 2003
A Comedy of Colors
By Jim Holt
Four Colors Suffice: How the Map Problem Was Solved
by Robin Wilson
Princeton University Press, 262 pp., $24.95
A century and a half ago, a student who was coloring a map of England noticed that he only needed four colors to do the job—that is, to ensure that no counties sharing a border, such as Kent and Sussex, got the same color. This led him to guess that four colors might be sufficient for any map, real or invented. He mentioned this idle surmise to his brother. His brother in turn mentioned it to a distinguished mathematician, who, after a little experimentation to see if it looked plausible, tried and failed to prove that it was true.
Review, 3894 words
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