Andrew Wiles
Andrew Wiles
Sir Andrew John Wiles KBE FRSis a British mathematician and a Royal Society Research Professor at the University of Oxford, specialising in number theory. He is most notable for proving Fermat's Last Theorem, for which he received the 2016 Abel Prize. Wiles has received numerous other honours...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionMathematician
Date of Birth11 April 1953
english-mathematician knew moment solve ten understand year
Here was a problem, that I, a ten year old, could understand and I knew from that moment that I would never let it go. I had to solve it.
achievement english-mathematician hard mathematics sure
I'm sure that some of them will be very hard and I'll have a sense of achievement again, but nothing will mean the same to me - there's no other problem in mathematics that could hold me the way that this one did.
math long attention
We've lost something that's been with us for so long, and something that drew a lot of us into mathematics. But perhaps that's always the way with math problems, and we just have to find new ones to capture our attention.
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The greatest problem for mathematicians now is probably the Riemann Hypothesis.
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I never use a computer.
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The definition of a good mathematical problem is the mathematics it generates rather than the problem itself.
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It could be that the methods needed to take the next step may simply be beyond present day mathematics. Perhaps the methods I needed to complete the proof would not be invented for a hundred years.
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Well, some mathematics problems look simple, and you try them for a year or so, and then you try them for a hundred years, and it turns out that they're extremely hard to solve.
complete english-mathematician hundred invented living methods needed perhaps proof wrong
Perhaps the methods I needed to complete the proof would not be invented for a hundred years. So even if I was on the right track, I could be living in the wrong century.
english-mathematician realized theorem
I realized that anything to do with Fermat's Last Theorem generates too much interest.
eight english-mathematician obsessed problem sleep thinking time woke
There's also a sense of freedom. I was so obsessed by this problem that I was thinking about if all the time - when I woke up in the morning, when I went to sleep at night, and that went on for eight years.
best books found home last local loved math particular problems public section
I loved doing problems in school. I'd take them home and make up new ones of my own. But the best problem I ever found, I found in my local public library. I was just browsing through the section of math books and I found this one book, which was all about one particular problem - Fermat's Last Theorem.
english-mathematician excitement hope lots mathematics realize seeing solving
I hope that seeing the excitement of solving this problem will make young mathematicians realize that there are lots and lots of other problems in mathematics which are going to be just as challenging in the future.
believe english-mathematician himself
I don't believe Fermat had a proof. I think he fooled himself into thinking he had a proof.