View source for The Parrot's Theorem

{{short description|Book by Denis Guedj}}
{{infobox book | <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels or Wikipedia:WikiProject_Books -->
| name         = The Parrot's Theorem
| title_orig   = Le Théorème du Perroquet
| translator   = [[Frank Wynne]]
| image        = Image:DenisGuedj TheParrot'sTheorem.jpg
| caption      = First edition
| author       = [[Denis Guedj]]
| cover_artist = 
| country      = France
| language     = French
| series       = 
| genre        = [[Mathematical fiction]]
| publisher    = [[Weidenfeld & Nicolson]]
| release_date = 1998
| english_pub_date = 15 June 2000
| media_type   = Print ([[Hardcover|Hardback]] & [[Paperback]])
| pages        = 416 pp (hardback edition)
| isbn = 0-297-64578-1
| isbn_note = (hardback edition)
| dewey        = 843/.914 21
| congress     = PQ2667.U3555 T4813 2001
| oclc         = 47023367
| preceded_by  = 
| followed_by  = 
}}

'''''The Parrot's Theorem''''' is a French [[novel]] written by [[Denis Guedj]] and published in 1998. An English translation was published in 2000.

==Plot summary==

The plot revolves around a household in Paris: Mr Ruche, an elderly wheelchair-using bookseller, his employee and housemate Perrette, and Perrette's three children – teenage twins and young Max, who is deaf. Max liberates a [[talking parrot]] at the market and Mr Ruche receives a consignment of mathematical books from an old friend, who has lived in Brazil for decades without any contact between the two.

The household sets up its own exploration of mathematics in order to crack the code of the last messages from Mr Ruche's old friend, now apparently murdered. Mathematical topics covered in the book include [[prime number|primes]] and [[Factorization|factors]]; [[irrational number|irrational]] and [[amicable number]]s; the discoveries of [[Pythagoras]], [[Archimedes]] and [[Euclid]]; and the problems of [[squaring the circle]] and [[doubling the cube]].

The mathematics is real mathematics, woven into an historical sequence as a series of intriguing problems, bringing their own stories with them.

==See also==
{{portal|Novels}}
* [[Forrest Library]]
* ''[[Numbers: The Universal Language]]''

==References==
*[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/aug/12/fiction.reviews2 Imaginary numbers], A review of The Parrot's Theorem by [[Simon Singh]].

{{DEFAULTSORT:Parrots Theorem: A Novel, The}}
[[Category:1998 French novels]]
[[Category:Books about parrots]]
[[Category:Novels about mathematics]]
[[Category:Novels set in Paris]]
[[Category:Weidenfeld & Nicolson books]]
[[Category:Novels about birds]]