For more than 350 years, a mathematics problem whose solution was considered the Holy Grail to the greatest mathematician minds had remained unsolved. Now, a team of mathematicians led by a prominent ...

Math and mystery add up to an unlikely but engrossing solution in "Fermat's Room," a locked-room teaser that handles its limited dramatic permutations with flair, skill and a nicely contempo air. Math ...

Fermat’s Last Theorem is so simple to state, but so hard to prove. Though the 350-year-old claim is a straightforward one about integers, the proof that University of Oxford mathematician Andrew Wiles ...

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 ...

This is part one of a two-part series. Part II: “A Mathematical Tragedy” is available at About Time. Sophie Germain was the first person to develop a realistic plan to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem.

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 ...

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 ...

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The mathematics problem he solved had been lingering since 1637 — and he first read about it when he was just 10 years old. This week, British professor Andrew Wiles, 62, got prestigious recognition ...

British professor Sir Andrew Wiles was awarded mathematics’ most prestigious prize this week, for providing the proof to a theorem that had stymied everyone in the field for over 350 years. Wiles was ...