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Wiles at the 61st Birthday conference for P. Deligne (Institute for Advanced Study, 2005).
Born
Nationality
British
Fields
Mathematics
Institutions
University of Oxford
Princeton University
Alma mater
University of Oxford
University of Cambridge
Thesis
Doctoral advisor
John Coates
Doctoral students
Manjul Bhargava
Brian Conrad
Fred Diamond
Karl Rubin
Christopher Skinner
Richard Taylor
Known for
Notable awards
Sir Andrew John Wiles, KBE, FRS (born 11 April 1953)[1] is a British mathematician and a Royal
Society Research Professor at Oxford University, specializing in number theory. He is most notable
for proving Fermat's Last Theorem.
Contents
[hide]
2 Mathematical career
5 Awards
6 Public honours
7 In popular culture
8 Notes
9 External links
Shimura-Weil conjecture"). The modularity theorem involved elliptic curves, which was also Wiles' own
specialist area.
The conjecture was seen by contemporary mathematicians as important, but extraordinarily difficult or perhaps
inaccessible to proof.[4]:203-205, 223, 226 For example, Wiles' ex-supervisor John Coates states that it seemed
"impossible to actually prove",[4]:226 and Ken Ribet considered himself "one of the vast majority of people who
believed [it] was completely inaccessible", adding that "Andrew Wiles was probably one of the few people on
earth who had the audacity to dream that you can actually go and prove [it]."
[4]:223
Despite this, Wiles, who had a childhood fascination with Fermat's Last Theorem - decided to undertake the
challenge of proving the conjecture - at least to the extent needed for Frey's curve - as the conjecture itself was
also a professionally "worthwhile" and significant research area. [4]:226 He dedicated all of his research time to
this problem for over 6 years in near-total secrecy, covering up his efforts by releasing prior work in small
segments as separate papers and confiding only in his wife. [4]:229-230 In 1993, he presented his proof to the public
for the first time at a conference in Cambridge.[5] In August 1993 it turned out that the proof contained a flaw in
one area. Wiles tried and failed for over a year to repair his proof. According to Wiles, the crucial idea for
circumventing, rather than closing this area, came to him on 19 September 1994 when he was on the verge of
giving up. Together with his former student Richard Taylor, he published a second paper which circumvented
the problem and thus completed the proof. Both papers were published in 1995 in a special volume of
the Annals of Mathematics.
Awards [edit]
Wiles has been awarded several major prizes in mathematics and science:
A silver plaque from the International Mathematical Union (1998) recognizing his achievements, in
place of the Fields Medal, which is restricted to those under 40 (Wiles was born in 1953 and proved the
theorem in 1994)[13][14]
Wiles was appointed to the rank of Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the United
Kingdom in 2000