Like many math students, I had dreams of mathematical greatness. I thought I was close once. A difficult algebra problem in college kept me working late into the night. After hours of struggle, I felt ...
The proof Wiles finally came up with (helped by Richard Taylor) was something Fermat would never have dreamed up. It tackled the theorem indirectly, by means of an enormous bridge that mathematicians ...
A mathematician will turn a groundbreaking 100-page proof into computer code. The proof tool, Lean, lets users turn proofs written in prose into rules and logic for testing. Kevin Buzzard already uses ...
Maxine Calle is a 2023 AAAS Mass Media Fellow at The Conversation U.S. and she receives funding from the National Science Foundation. David Bressoud does not work for, consult, own shares in or ...
The following is an extract from our Lost in Space-Time newsletter. Each month, we hand over the keyboard to a physicist or mathematician to tell you about fascinating ideas from their corner of the ...
THE first attempt to prove Fermat's last theorem contained in this edition repeats a fallacy to which attention has already been directed in NATURE, Oct. 30, 1919. On pp. 18, 21, “quantities”t and υ ...
Pierre de Fermat left behind a truly tantalizing hint of a proof when he died—one that mathematicians struggled to complete for centuries. François de Poilly, wikimedia commons The story is familiar ...
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