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Fermat's last theorem |
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Fermat's last theoremStatement that there are no natural numbers x, y, and z such that xn + yn = zn, in which n is a natural number greater than 2. About this, Pierre de Fermat wrote in 1637 in his copy of Diophantus's Arithmetica, “I have discovered a truly remarkable proof but this margin is too small to contain it.” Although the theorem was subsequently shown to be true for many specific values of n, leading to important mathematical advances in the process, the difficulty of the problem soon convinced mathematicians that Fermat never had a valid proof. In 1995 the British mathematician Andrew Wiles (b. 1953) and his former student Richard Taylor (b. 1962) published a complete proof, finally solving one of the most famous of all mathematical problems. How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. |
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What if he says he'll tell you where the bomb is if someone will explain the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, in words he can understand? Ash and Gross describe current research in number theory and explain how the rules of mathematics lead to proofs such as that for Fermat's last theorem. Though I was grateful to the folks at MIT, Michigan State, and Stanford for doing all the statistical legwork, they didn't exactly solve Fermat's Last Theorem or uncrypt the Holy Grail. |
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