Andrew Wiles

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Sir Andrew John Wiles (born April 11 1953) is an English-American mathematician at Princeton University in number theory. He is most famous for finally proving Fermat's Last Theorem.

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• I grew up in Cambridge in England, and my love of mathematics dates from those early childhood days.
  • Nova Interview

• I loved doing problems in school.
  • Nova Interview

• I loved doing problems in school. I'd take them home and make up new ones of my own.
  • Nova Interview

• 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.
  • Nova Interview

• 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.
  • Nova Interview

• I realized that anything to do with Fermat's Last Theorem generates too much interest.
  • Nova Interview

• I really believed that I was on the right track, but that did not mean that I would necessarily reach my goal.
  • Nova Interview

• Young children simply aren't interested in Fermat. They just want to hear a story and they're not going to let you do anything else.
  • Nova Interview. Note he considers this a good thing- he says right before it "The only way I could relax was when I was with my children."

• Fermat couldn't possibly have had this proof.
  • Nova Interview

• I don't believe Fermat had a proof. I think he fooled himself into thinking he had a proof.
  • Nova Interview

• But what has made this problem special for amateurs is that there's a tiny possibility that there does exist an elegant 17th-century proof.
  • Nova Interview

• Fermat was my childhood passion.
  • Nova Interview

• 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.
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• But perhaps that's always the way with math problems, and we just have to find new ones to capture our attention.
  • Nova Interview

• Certainly one thing that I've learned is that it is important to pick a problem based on how much you care about it.
  • Nova Interview

• However impenetrable it seems, if you don't try it, then you can never do it.
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• Always try the problem that matters most to you.
  • Nova Interview

• I had this rare privilege of being able to pursue in my adult life, what had been my childhood dream.
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• I know it's a rare privilege, but if one can really tackle something in adult life that means that much to you, then it's more rewarding than anything I can imagine.
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• I think I'll stop here.
  • After finishing writing the proof to Fermat's Last Thereom (1993)

I tried to fit it in with some previous broad conceptual understanding of some part of mathematics that would clarify the particular problem I was thinking about.

I was so obsessed by this problem that I was thinking about it all the time - when I woke up in the morning, when I went to sleep at night - and that went on for eight years.

I would wake up with it first thing in the morning, I would be thinking about it all day and I would be thinking about it when I went to sleep.

I'd always have a pencil and paper ready and, if I really had an idea, I'd sit down at a bench and I'd start scribbling away.

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.

I've read letters in the early 19th century which said that it was an embarrassment to mathematics that the Last Theorem had not been solved.

If the proof we write down is really rigorous, then nobody can ever prove it wrong.

In a mathematical proof you have a line of reasoning consisting of many, many steps, that are almost self-evident.

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.

It mentioned a nineteenth century construction, and I suddenly realised that I should be able to use that to complete the proof.

It's fine to work on any problem, so long as it generates interesting mathematics along the way - even if you don't solve it at the end of the day.

Just because we can't find a solution it doesn't mean that there isn't one.

Mathematicians aren't satisfied because they know there are no solutions up to four million or four billion, they really want to know that there are no solutions up to infinity.

My wife's only known me while I've been working on Fermat.

Perhaps I can best describe my experience of doing mathematics in terms of a journey through a dark unexplored mansion.

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.

Pure mathematicians just love to try unsolved problems - they love a challenge.

So each of these breakthroughs, while sometimes they're momentary, sometimes over a period of a day or two, they are the culmination of - and couldn't exist without - the many months of stumbling around in the dark that proceed them. Andrew Wiles

So the romance of Fermat, which had held me all my life, was now combined with a problem that was professionally acceptable. Andrew Wiles

That particular odyssey is now over. My mind is now at rest. Andrew Wiles

The definition of a good mathematical problem is the mathematics it generates rather than the problem itself. Andrew Wiles

The greatest problem for mathematicians now is probably the Riemann Hypothesis. Andrew Wiles

The greatest problem for mathematicians now is probably the Riemann Hypothesis. But it's not a problem that can be simply stated. Andrew Wiles

The only way I could relax was when I was with my children. Andrew Wiles

The problem with working on Fermat was that you could spend years getting nowhere. Andrew Wiles

Then when I reached college I realized that many people had thought about the problem during the 18th and 19th centuries and so I studied those methods. Andrew Wiles

There are proofs that date back to the Greeks that are still valid today. Andrew Wiles

There is a sense of melancholy. We've lost something that's been with us for so long, and something that drew a lot of us into mathematics. Andrew Wiles

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. Andrew Wiles

There's no other problem in mathematics that could hold me the way that this one did. Andrew Wiles

There's no problem that will mean the same to me. Fermat was my childhood passion. There's nothing to replace it. Andrew Wiles

There's no reason why these problems shouldn't be easy, and yet they turn out to be extremely intricate. The Last Theorem is the most beautiful example of this. Andrew Wiles

Walking has a very good effect in that you're in this state of relaxation, but at the same time you're allowing the sub-conscious to work on you. Andrew Wiles

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. Andrew Wiles

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. Andrew Wiles

When I got stuck and I didn't know what to do next, I would go out for a walk. I'd often walk down by the lake. Andrew Wiles

You can't really focus yourself for years unless you have undivided concentration, which too many spectators would have destroyed. Andrew Wiles

Andrew Wiles

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