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Home
Authors
Andrew Wiles
English
Mathematician
About the author
The greatest problem for mathematicians now is probably the Riemann Hypothesis.
Andrew Wiles,
English
Mathematician
#Now
#Mathematicians
Just because we can't find a solution it doesn't mean that there isn't one.
Andrew Wiles,
English
Mathematician
#Solution
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.
Andrew Wiles,
English
Mathematician
#Right
#Years
#Wrong
#Living
#Proof
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,
English
Mathematician
#Problems
#Years
#Mathematics
That particular odyssey is now over. My mind is now at rest.
Andrew Wiles,
English
Mathematician
#Now
#Mind
#Rest
The definition of a good mathematical problem is the mathematics it generates rather than the problem itself.
Andrew Wiles,
English
Mathematician
#Mathematics
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.
Andrew Wiles,
English
Mathematician
#Work
#Day
#End
#Mathematics
The only way I could relax was when I was with my children.
Andrew Wiles,
English
Mathematician
#Children
#Relax
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,
English
Mathematician
#People
#Thought
#College
There are proofs that date back to the Greeks that are still valid today.
Andrew Wiles,
English
Mathematician
#Today
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,
English
Mathematician
#Problems
#Attention
#Mathematics
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.
Andrew Wiles,
English
Mathematician
#Want
#Infinity
#Mathematicians
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.
Andrew Wiles,
English
Mathematician
#Years
#Day
#May
#Present
#Mathematics
#Proof
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,
English
Mathematician
#Time
#Thinking
#Years
#Freedom
#Sense
#Night
#Sleep
I had this rare privilege of being able to pursue in my adult life, what had been my childhood dream.
Andrew Wiles,
English
Mathematician
#Life
#Being
#Dream
#Childhood
#Privilege
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.
Andrew Wiles,
English
Mathematician
#Will
#Nothing
#Sense
#Achievement
#Mathematics
But the best problem I ever found, I found in my local public library.
Andrew Wiles,
English
Mathematician
#Public
Fermat said he had a proof.
Andrew Wiles,
English
Mathematician
#Proof
However impenetrable it seems, if you don't try it, then you can never do it.
Andrew Wiles,
English
Mathematician
I grew up in Cambridge in England, and my love of mathematics dates from those early childhood days.
Andrew Wiles,
English
Mathematician
#Love
#England
#Childhood
#Mathematics
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.
Andrew Wiles,
English
Mathematician
#Hope
#Will
#Problems
#Future
#Mathematics
#Excitement
#Mathematicians
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.
Andrew Wiles,
English
Mathematician
#Life
#Privilege
I loved doing problems in school.
Andrew Wiles,
English
Mathematician
#Problems
#School
Pure mathematicians just love to try unsolved problems - they love a challenge.
Andrew Wiles,
English
Mathematician
#Love
#Problems
#Challenge
#Mathematicians
I realized that anything to do with Fermat's Last Theorem generates too much interest.
Andrew Wiles,
English
Mathematician
#Interest
Always try the problem that matters most to you.
Andrew Wiles,
English
Mathematician
I really believed that I was on the right track, but that did not mean that I would necessarily reach my goal.
Andrew Wiles,
English
Mathematician
#Right
#Goal
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.
Andrew Wiles,
English
Mathematician
#Thinking
#Understanding
#Mathematics
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.
Andrew Wiles,
English
Mathematician
#Time
#Thinking
#Years
#Night
#Sleep
I don't believe Fermat had a proof. I think he fooled himself into thinking he had a proof.
Andrew Wiles,
English
Mathematician
#Thinking
#Proof