Posted on 03/16/2016 7:26:38 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Oxford University professor Sir Andrew Wiles has been awarded the prestigious Abel Prize for his "stunning proof" of Fermat's Last Theorem.
Wiles life has been dedicated to the three-century-old theorem which has been his "passion from an early age" after he read “The Last Problem” by ET Bell.
His proof was first published in 1994 while working at Princeton University in New Jersey — he will collect the award 22 years later at a ceremony in Oslo in May.
The theorem, created in 1637 by French mathematician Pierre de Fermant, says that there are no solutions in integers — or whole numbers — to the equation xn + yn = zn when n is greater than 2.
Wiles' work isn't merely a solution to the theory, his findings have shaped mathematics and the entire approach to the field, and were originally submitted as a 200-page file.
The Abel Prize is awarded by the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters and is widely regarded as the most prestigious award in its field. As well as a trophy, winners of the award also take home six million Norwegian Krone (£500,000, $700,000).
When asked what it feels like to solve a puzzle that has mystified mathematicians for centuries, he said: "It’s thrilling. It’s the experience we live for, this insight, that suddenly you see everything clearly before you that’s been so obscure and so frustrating for so long."
The Norwegian academy lauded the professor's groundbreaking work, saying: "Wiles' proof was not only the high point of his career — and an epochal moment for mathematics — but also the culmination of a remarkable personal journey that began three decades earlier."
This isn't the first time Wiles has been recognised for his contributions to mathematics.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
22 years? Talk about being slow to cough up the money.
Awesome! Congratulations. I remember hearing about that in school.
Is there any practical applications for this theorem?
(1)³ + (-1)³ = (0)³.
I saw a tv program about this once, and while it was above my level, it was very interesting.
Ah, heck, he beat me to it.
I had my own proof almost completed. I was just trying to decide whether to start my last line with “Therefore...” or with “In conclusion...”.
I forgot that old saying: It doesn’t matter who discovers first. What matters is who publishes first.
Unfortunately, -1 is not a positive integer.
#solvedtheoremsmatter
I wonder how many “last theorems” begin with the phrase “Hold my beer and watch while I prove this.”
Did the article at the source express the equation like that? Or did it show it like the equation shown in the image? Reading the theorem as it was expressed in the excerpt my first thought was "how ridiculous; any solution where z=x+y would satisfy that equation."
It is clear that FORMAT is important in FERMAT's equation.
Yeah, but he didn’t say x, y, and z had to be positive in what he wrote on the blackboard.
-1 is not a positive integer.
I figured out long ago that I was never going to prove or disprove that thermo.
x, y and z all have to be positive integers.
“Ah, heck, he beat me to it.”
Don’t worry. There is plenty yet to do. I just got a new book for my birthday....
“Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics” by John Derbyshire.
I love mathematics, but I’m NOT very good at it. I’m still trying to understand the difference between Irrational and Transcendental numbers....sigh
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