
Fermat's Last Theorem Earns Andrew Wiles the Abel Prize - fforflo
http://www.nature.com/news/fermat-s-last-theorem-earns-andrew-wiles-the-abel-prize-1.19552
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adenadel
There's a really nice documentary on Andrew Wiles and Fermat's Last Theorem

[https://vimeo.com/18216532](https://vimeo.com/18216532)

It even gives a high level description of the methods used for those who are
interested.

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ereyes01
"He was not a very careful person as a mathematician. He made a lot of
mistakes. But he made mistakes in a good direction. I tried to imitate him.
But I've realized that it's very difficult to make good mistakes."

\- Goro Shimura's profound description of how Yutaka Taniyama approached
mathematics.

I never understood the amount of creativity and ingenuity that goes into good
math until I learned some number theory and abstract algebra back in my
college days, and read about the many math greats throughout history.

Thanks for the link to the documentary. This was well worth the time.

~~~
globuous
David Hilbert agreed:

"Good, he did not have enough imagination to become a mathematician".

— Hilbert's response upon hearing that one of his students had dropped out to
study poetry.[11]

source:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hilbert](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hilbert)

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indifferentalex
I know he has other sources of income but the fact that this extremely smart
and dedicated person, in an age of professional lifestyle bloggers,
"travellers" and other celebrities, is rewarded for his efforts and can just
go out and buy himself a brand new Ferrari with the prize money makes me
smile.

~~~
6502nerdface
> the fact that this extremely smart and dedicated person [...] is rewarded
> for his efforts

Yeah, all he had to do was prove Fermat's Last Theorem.

~~~
delightless
And then wait 22 years.

~~~
noir_lord
The note to pay him should have been in the margins but there wasn't enough
room.

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sk2code
If interested there is a very good book about this subject:
[http://www.amazon.com/Fermats-Enigma-Greatest-
Mathematical-P...](http://www.amazon.com/Fermats-Enigma-Greatest-Mathematical-
Problem/dp/0385493622/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8)

~~~
aidos
Ha. I've read it as "Fermat's Last Theorem" \- guess that's the UK name.

For anyone who hasn't read them Simon Singh's books are great introductions to
subjects by tracking their history. In this case mathematics, but he also has
one about cryptography [1] and another on the space and the universe [2].

[1] [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Code-Book-Science-Secrecy-
Cryptograp...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Code-Book-Science-Secrecy-
Cryptography/dp/1857028791/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8)

[2] [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Big-Bang-Important-Scientific-
Discov...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Big-Bang-Important-Scientific-
Discovery/dp/0007152523/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8)

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Kenji
I have a question about these hundreds-of-pages long proofs. Who can check
such long proofs and be confident about it? To study a document of this size
and advanced content rigorously, you would need years - and even then, it is
not certain that you didn't overlook something. How can I ever be confident in
such proofs until they are checked in, say, Coq or something?

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comex
Huh, I thought I had read somewhere that a machine checked proof of Fermat's
Last Theorem had already been created. I must have mixed it up with something
else.

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
Are you thinking of Fermat's Little Theorem?

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taneq
Well, the margin of _Arithmetica_ is certainly too narrow to contain it. Can
any mathematicians confirm that it is truly marvellous? Or is there another
proof out there?

~~~
Tomte
It's obviously impossible to know what Fermat actually had, but consensus has
always been that Fermat may have had a proof in mind, but almost certainly not
a correct one.

