Researched
Fermat's Last Theorem Proved
Andrew Wiles proves Fermat's Last Theorem in 1994/95, after 358 years, with tools Fermat never knew.
Open in the interactive tree →Fermat noted in 1637 that a^n + b^n = c^n has no whole-number solutions for n above 2. Wiles proved a special case of the modularity conjecture in 1993/94, with Richard Taylor repairing a gap, and the theorem follows; the paper appeared in 1995. The proof joined number theory, elliptic curves and group theory and became a model for the large 'bridges' of the Langlands program.
Prerequisites
- Calculus (Analysis)1684
- Number Theory & Group Theory1801
- Abstract Algebra (Noether)1921-1931Wiles's proof uses elliptic curves and Galois representations, built on structural algebra