Andrew Wiles
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Sir Andrew John Wiles |
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| Born | April 11, 1953 Cambridge, England |
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| Residence |  United Kingdom,  U.S. |
| Nationality | British - American |
| Field | Mathematician |
| Institution | Princeton University |
| Alma mater | Oxford University Cambridge University |
| Academic advisor | John Coates |
| Notable students | Manjul Bhargava Brian Conrad |
| Known for | Solving Fermat's Last Theorem |
| Notable prizes | Wolf Prize (1995) Royal Medal (1996) |
- Andrew Wiles should not be confused with André Weil, another famous mathematician who, like Wiles, did important work in the area of elliptic curves.
Sir Andrew John Wiles (born April 11, 1953) is a British-American research mathematician at Princeton University, specializing in number theory. He attended The Leys School, Cambridge and then earned his BA degree from Merton College, Oxford University in 1974 and Ph.D. from Clare College, Cambridge University in 1980. His graduate research was guided by John Coates beginning in the summer of 1975. Together they worked on the arithmetic of elliptic curves with complex multiplication by the methods of Iwasawa theory. He further worked with Barry Mazur on the main conjecture of Iwasawa theory over 
, and soon afterwards generalized this result to totally real fields. His most famous mathematical result is that all rational semistable elliptic curves are modular which, in particular, implies Fermat's Last Theorem.
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[edit] Solution of Fermat's Last Theorem
Andrew Wiles was introduced to Fermat's Last Theorem at the age of ten. He tried to prove the theorem using textbook methods and later studied the work of mathematicians who had tried to prove it. When he began his graduate studies he stopped trying to prove it and began studying elliptic curves under the supervision of John Coates.
In the 1950s and 1960s a connection between elliptic curves and modular forms was conjectured by the Japanese mathematician Goro Shimura based on some ideas that Yutaka Taniyama posed. In the West it became well known through a paper by André Weil. With Weil giving conceptual evidence for it, it is sometimes called the Shimura-Taniyama-Weil conjecture. It states that every rational elliptic curve is modular. The full conjecture was proven by Christophe Breuil, Brian Conrad, Fred Diamond, and Richard Taylor in 1998 using many of the methods that Andrew Wiles used in his 1995 published papers.
| Fermat's Last Theorem states that no nontrivial integer solutions exist for the equation: xn + yn = zn if n is an integer greater than two. |
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| The bridge between Fermat and Taniyama |
| If p is an odd prime and a, b, and c are positive integers such that ap+bp=cp, then a corresponding equation y2 = x(x - ap)(x + bp) defines a hypothetical elliptic curve, called the Frey curve, which must exist if there is a counterexample to Fermat's Last Theorem. Following on work by Yves Hellegouarch who first considered this curve, Frey pointed out that if such a curve existed it had peculiar properties, and suggested in particular that it might not be modular. |
A connection between Taniyama-Shimura and Fermat was made by Ken Ribet, following on work by Barry Mazur and Jean-Pierre Serre, with his proof of the epsilon conjecture showing that Frey's idea that the Frey curve could not be modular was correct. In particular, this showed that a proof of the semistable case of the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture would imply Fermat's Last Theorem. Wiles made the decision that he would work exclusively on the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture shortly after he had learned that Ribet had proven the epsilon conjecture in 1986. While many mathematicians thought the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture was inaccessible, Wiles resolved to follow that approach.
When Wiles first began studying Taniyama-Shimura, he would casually mention Fermat to people, but he found that doing so created too much interest. He wanted to be able to work on his problem in a concentrated fashion, and if people were expressing too much interest then he would not have been able to focus on his problem. Consequently he let only Nicholas Katz know what he was working on. Wiles did not do any research that was not related to Taniyama-Shimura, though of course he did continue in his teaching duties at Princeton university; continuing to attend seminars, lecture undergraduates, and give tutorials.
[edit] Cultural references
Wiles's work on Fermat's Last Theorem was commemorated (in fictional form) in the musical Fermat's Last Tango, written by Joanne Sydney Lessner and Joshua Rosenblum.[1]
Wiles and his work on Fermat's last theorem were mentioned in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Facets". This also served as a correction for Fermat's last theorem being said to be unsolved in the earlier Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Royale".
Wiles is mentioned in Tom Lehrer's song "That's Mathematics"
[edit] Trivia
- Wiles has an Erdős number of 3
- He is married to Nada Canaan and has three children Clare, Kate and Olivia
- He enjoys playing golf at Princeton University's course Springdale
- Fellow, Royal Society (1989)
[edit] Awards
Wiles has been awarded several major prizes in mathematics:
- Schock Prize (1995)
- Cole Prize (1996) [2]
- National Academy of Sciences Award in Mathematics from the American Mathematical Society (1996) [3]
- Ostrowski Prize (1996) [4][5]
- Royal Medal (1996)
- Wolf Prize (1996)
- Wolfskehl Prize (1997) [6] - see Paul Wolfskehl
- 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). [7]
- King Faisal Prize (1998) [8]
- Clay Research Award (1999)
- Named Knight of the British Empire (2000).
- Shaw Prize (2005) [9]
[edit] Quotations
- "I think I'll stop here." -- immediately after presenting the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, Cambridge, 23 June 1993
[edit] References
- Princeton home page
- Andrew Wiles' bibliography
- Andrew Wiles (May 1995). "Modular elliptic curves and Fermat's Last Theorem". Annals of Mathematics 141 (3): 443-551.
- Richard Taylor and Andrew Wiles (May 1995). "Ring-theoretic properties of certain Hecke algebras". Annals of Mathematics 141 (3): 553-572.
- Gerd Faltings (1995). "The Proof of Fermat's last theorem by R. Taylor and A. Wiles". Notices of the AMS 42 (7): 743-746.
- John Coates (July 1996). "Wiles Receives NAS Award in Mathematics". Notices of the AMS 43 (7): 760-763.
- Singh, Simon (1997). Fermat's Enigma. ISBN 0-8027-1331-9.
- Mozzochi, Charles (2000). The Fermat Diary. ISBN 0-8218-2670-0.
- NOVA Online: The Proof. WGBH (1997). Retrieved on 2006-05-03.
- O'Connor, John J., and Edmund F. Robertson. "Andrew Wiles". MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.
- Bluff your way in Fermat's Last Theorem. Retrieved on 2006-05-03.
- Fermat's Last Tango. Retrieved on 2006-05-22.
[edit] External links
| Preceded by Elias M. Stein |
Schock Prize in Mathematics 1995 |
Succeeded by Mikio Sato |
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Wiles, Andrew |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Mathematician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 11, 1953 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Cambridge, England |
| DATE OF DEATH | |
| PLACE OF DEATH | |
Categories: 1953 births | Living people | 20th century mathematicians | 21st century mathematicians | English mathematicians | Fellows of the Royal Society | MacArthur Fellows | Number theorists | Alumni of Merton College, Oxford | Honorary Fellows of Merton College, Oxford | Alumni of Clare College, Cambridge | Princeton University faculty | Members and associates of the United States National Academy of Sciences | Erdős number 3 | Wolf Prize recipients
