
Andrew Wiles on the struggle and beauty of mathematics - ColinWright
https://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/sir-andrew-wiles-on-the-struggle-beauty-rapture-of-mathematics/
======
warent
Some of my favorite quotes related:

    
    
        "As Wiles began his lectures, there was more and more speculation 
        about what it was going to be," Dr. Ribet said.
        ... Finally, at the end of his third lecture, Dr. Wiles concluded
        that he had proved a general case of the Taniyama conjecture.
        Then, seemingly as an afterthought,
        he noted that that meant that Fermat's last theorem was true. Q.E.D. [1]
    

And

    
    
        "I had to give the next lecture," Dr. Ribet said.
        "It was something incredibly mundane."
        Since mathematicians are "a pretty well-behaved
        bunch," they listened politely.
        But, he said, it was hard to concentrate.
        "Most people in the room, including me, were incredibly shell-shocked," [1]
    

Very funny, but also gives me goosebumps. That would have been some lecture!

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/24/us/at-last-shout-of-
eureka...](http://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/24/us/at-last-shout-of-eureka-in-
age-old-math-mystery.html)

------
throwaway3123
I think true happiness often can really only come from developing a skill; to
be an old school artisan is the way forth.

This is an idea I'd dismissed at first, 'work is worship' and all that jazz,
as some propaganda by the classes incl. and above the bourgeoisie.

I then the same illustrated by Alan Watts, and illustrated beautifully some
months back in Oatmeal.

[http://theoatmeal.com/comics/unhappy](http://theoatmeal.com/comics/unhappy)

... and then I realized both were true. Words are both the instruments of the
savior and the devil.

~~~
lodi
I think there are two concepts being conflated here, but I'm not sure what to
call them. Let's call them X and Y.

\---

1) Saving whatever% off your car insurance makes you X.

2) Having sex makes you X.

3) Scoring the winning point in a close game makes you X.

A) Laying the last brick on a house you built with your bare hands makes you
Y.

B) Watching your daughter get her doctorate makes you Y.

C) Solving a non-trivial theorem for the first time in history makes you Y.

\---

I'm just not sure what to call X and Y; perhaps "happiness" vs "fulfillment",
or "joy" vs "happiness", or "happiness" vs " _true_ happiness"...

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ggm
The night Wiles did the fermat reveal I took a call from a Canadian
mathematician friend working the (internet, phone) tree to get the word out. I
found myself, no mathematican, ringing the ABC australia science desk, asking
for, and getting connected to Robin Williams (one of our formost science
journalists) to try and encourage him to go with the story on the national
news. Quite an engaging moment for me: in my domain of computer science we'd
call what I did almost a social engineering attack: "I have important
scienting news, put me through to your chief scienting reporter..." and it
worked!

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heinrichf
A beautiful and touching documentary about Fermat's last theorem, Wiles, and
the other mathematicians involved in its proof:
[http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x223gx8](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x223gx8)

~~~
copperx
That was beautiful. It makes you wonder whether Fermat really had a proof, and
if he did, why no one has replicated it using more rudimentary mathematics? If
a mathematician could explain that I would be thankful.

~~~
317070
He most likely did not and thought that his work in low dimensions would
easily scale up to higher dimensions, unaware of the monsters that lurk there.

He had the proof for the power of 2, and when he wrote his line he might have
had the proof for powers of 3 in mind (which he didnt write down) and thought
that that one would generalize for all n. Which turned out to be true, but for
completely different reasons.

[https://math.stackexchange.com/a/324764/243949](https://math.stackexchange.com/a/324764/243949)

~~~
tome
I think you must mean for the powers of 3 and 4. It's not true for the power
of 2!

See also
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermat%27s_Last_Theorem#Fermat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermat%27s_Last_Theorem#Fermat's_conjecture)

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osrec
I remember trying to "prove" Fermat's last theorem while at school (I was
around 16 at the time and obviously somewhat naive). The equation itself
looked so simple that I was convinced a proof would be equally as concise.
After a few failed attempts, I googled for solutions and stumbled up on Andrew
Wiles' proof. I was dumbfounded at its complexity! There is still a part of me
that hopes/believes that there exists some undiscovered crafty little
mathematical trick that can distill this monster proof into something simple!

~~~
amelius
If that crafty little trick is really that little, perhaps we could try to
find it by brute forcing it on a computer (symbolically, using a proof system)
(?)

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mhomde
I'm still intrigued by the possibility of a more "elegant" solution to Fermat
being out there. Wiles approach seems like brute forcing it by stitching
together different proofs. It seems very implausible that Fermat actually had
an actual solution, but it should be possible that one exists.

I guess the incentive to find it is much less now though when the theorem has
been proved.

~~~
jlarcombe
"Brute forcing it by stitching together different proofs"? Seems a bit of a
harsh assessment! My (limited) understanding is that Wiles' proof introduced
some hugely powerful new techniques related to modular forms and opened up a
lot of new areas of study.

~~~
mhomde
I didn't mean to trivialize it, it's an extremely impressive accomplishment
for sure. The documentary was very interesting as well, recommended

