In the words of the genius who ultimately solved the holy grail of mathematics (Fermat’s Last Theorem), “It looked so simple, and yet all the great mathematicians in history could’nt solve it. Here was a problem that I, a ten-year-old, could understand and I knew from the moment that I would never let it go. I had to solve it.”
And Andrew Wiles did it, 30 years after he first saw the problem, in 1993 at the Isaac Newton Institute in Cambridge. According to Pierre de Fermat there was no whole number solution to xn + yn =zn where n=3,4,5.. and so on. In other words the “Fermatean triple” never existed and to prove it never existed became the final frontier for mathematicians. The important steps in the proof to Fermat’s last theorem is more than 200 pages long, but mathematicians believe that a simpler solution may exist considering that Fermat had a small jotting on a notebook that read “I have a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain”. Only time will tell………..
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m just trying to be introspective. Yes! proving something right or wrong is a challenge. I dont really know what this theorem wud help in. But spending 30 years to solve a theorem………what was the light at the end of the long tunnel that motivated him…….just the satisfaction of having proved a theorem???? and what have u tried to say with that blog????? U know i love adding spice to discussions, heres some spice for you!!!!!!!
i happened to read the interview of Andrew Wiles after my previous post and observe that NOVA asked him the same q as i did? not convinced with the answer though.
Pramod, first things first. All that I tried saying through the blog was about the theorem which I did not know (and probably even you did not) existed till the time my advisor gave me the book to read. And I thought it was quite fascinating, since the book talks in detail about the history of math and the evolution of the number theory.
Maybe its of no use yet in its direct form, but as I read the book , I find that a lot of interesting things were proven just because mathematicians wanted to get to the root of this problem. You and I end up using so many equations in life which is due to the fact that its proven once and forever, and there is no iota of doubt about it. Math for a change is different than science, as there is nothing like a half truth in math. Something thats proven is proven for ever, unlike science where you make discoveries every century. When Pythogoras died, he did not have to worry about the validity of his theorem in 2010.
Keep adding spice my boy……….
And to quote Wiles, ” The definition of a good mathematical problem is the mathematics it generates rather than the problem itself”.