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Andrew Wiles on proving Fermat’s Last Theorem (1995) [video]
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Re: Andrew Wiles on proving Fermat’s Last Theorem (1995) [video]
#22I live in Australia. One day I received a very excited phonecall at a ludicrously early time from a Canadian Mathematician I knew (John McKay, Concordia. He's dead now but had been a figure in my childhood from his time in Edinburgh in the 60s. he had worked with John Conway early in both their careers) telling me this was rumoured to be coming, and asking me to get the word out and find out what I could. I pointed out I wasn't a mathematician or very well connected, he said "doesn't matter: Get to your national broadcaster and ask them to verify the story"
So I rang the ABC and asked to speak to the Science Desk. This was at around 7am by this time. I was connected immediately to Robyn Williams, the premier science communicator at the ABC, despite having no name, no evident back story or trust. He was absolutely delightful to talk to, agreed with a laugh that he often got excited calls about people squaring the circle or finding repeat patterns in PI digits and was used to crank callers, listened to me, probably did some checks and then said he'd contact somebody at Cambridge and see what the gen was. My memory is he called me back a little while later saying they'd confirmed a room was booked for a significant public announcement seminar, and thanked me for the tip. This was a long time ago, it's equally likely I misremembered and he gave me a name to check with in the UK and I did the leg work. The point is, I wasn't just told to bugger off.
Nowadays it would be all over twitter. John was a bit old school and liked phone calls. They had internet emails in 92 of course I think he just liked the physicality of a call.
Re: Andrew Wiles on proving Fermat’s Last Theorem (1995) [video]
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Consensus is that there's no way he had a correct, general proof. My personal guess is he figured out later that his proof was broken or limited and never got around to fixing it.
We haven’t yet reached the era in which we’re allowed to know about the technique. The simple, intuitive proof will become available to us when the time is right.
Quite literally, WTF is that supposed to mean?
Re: Andrew Wiles on proving Fermat’s Last Theorem (1995) [video]
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Consensus is that there's no way he had a correct, general proof. My personal guess is he figured out later that his proof was broken or limited and never got around to fixing it.
The funny thing is that whether or not he had a proof, it was only definitively proved because he claimed he had a proof, so in a roundabout sense, he's still responsible for the theorem being proved. It's kind of crazy to think about your words carrying so much weight that somebody from hundreds of years in the future will dedicate (a significant portion of) their life to them.
> he's still responsible for the theorem being proved.
I think you have an odd definition of "responsible". Many (most?) theorems start out as conjectures, and I would strongly disagree that just because someone first formulated a problem that they're "responsible" for the eventual solution.
Re: Andrew Wiles on proving Fermat’s Last Theorem (1995) [video]
#25Re: Andrew Wiles on proving Fermat’s Last Theorem (1995) [video]
#26I live in Australia. One day I received a very excited phonecall at a ludicrously early time from a Canadian Mathematician I knew (John McKay, Concordia. He's dead now but had been a figure in my childhood from his time in Edinburgh in the 60s. he had worked with John Conway early in both their careers) telling me this was rumoured to be coming, and asking me to get the word out and find out what I could. I pointed o…
Lovely story, thank you :)
Re: Andrew Wiles on proving Fermat’s Last Theorem (1995) [video]
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
The funny thing is that whether or not he had a proof, it was only definitively proved because he claimed he had a proof, so in a roundabout sense, he's still responsible for the theorem being proved. It's kind of crazy to think about your words carrying so much weight that somebody from hundreds of years in the future will dedicate (a significant portion of) their life to them.
> he's still responsible for the theorem being proved. I think you have an odd definition of "responsible". Many (most?) theorems start out as conjectures, and I would strongly disagree that just because someone first formulated a problem that they're "responsible" for the eventual solution.
It's not just that he formulated the problem, though. It was specifically the fact that he claimed he had a proof which led to the proof, and it was only because people credibly believed he had one that they spent so much effort trying to (supposedly, re-)discover it.
Re: Andrew Wiles on proving Fermat’s Last Theorem (1995) [video]
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
We haven’t yet reached the era in which we’re allowed to know about the technique. The simple, intuitive proof will become available to us when the time is right.
Quite literally, WTF is that supposed to mean?
It's the internet. Don't feed the trolls. Or the loons.
Re: Andrew Wiles on proving Fermat’s Last Theorem (1995) [video]
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
> he's still responsible for the theorem being proved. I think you have an odd definition of "responsible". Many (most?) theorems start out as conjectures, and I would strongly disagree that just because someone first formulated a problem that they're "responsible" for the eventual solution.
It's not just that he formulated the problem, though. It was specifically the fact that he claimed he had a proof which led to the proof, and it was only because people credibly believed he had one that they spent so much effort trying to (supposedly, re-)discover it.
> and it was only because people credibly believed he had one that they spent so much effort trying to (supposedly, re-)discover it.
That's not true. Even early on, most mathematicians doubted he had a proof. But I'd check out the history of the problem as described on Wikipedia. There was considerable research into the problem before Fermat, and general research into Diophantine equations had gone on for over a thousand years before Fermat. I have no doubt there would have been significant interest into solving the problem even if Fermat had never written his "I have a proof but it's too big to fit in the margin" note.
Re: Andrew Wiles on proving Fermat’s Last Theorem (1995) [video]
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Consensus is that there's no way he had a correct, general proof. My personal guess is he figured out later that his proof was broken or limited and never got around to fixing it.
The funny thing is that whether or not he had a proof, it was only definitively proved because he claimed he had a proof, so in a roundabout sense, he's still responsible for the theorem being proved. It's kind of crazy to think about your words carrying so much weight that somebody from hundreds of years in the future will dedicate (a significant portion of) their life to them.
I think he had a hunch, and maybe in his mathematic mind he got to the right answer by the wrong path
But yes had him not pointed it out maybe it would have been relegated to a mathematical curiosity or something
I think there's a deeper (but simpler) reason for it, besides the way Wiles proved it