Collection: Fermat’s Last Theorem

Fermat’s last theorem, also called Fermat’s great theorem, the statement that there are no natural numbers (1, 2, 3,…) x, y, and z such that xn + yn = zn, in which n is a natural number greater than 2. For example, if n = 3, Fermat’s last theorem states that no natural numbers x, y, and z exist such that x3 + y 3 = z3 (i.e., the sum of two cubes is not a cube).

In 1637 the French mathematician Pierre de Fermat wrote in his copy of the Arithmetica by Diophantus of Alexandria (c. 250 CE), “It is impossible for a cube to be a sum of two cubes, a fourth power to be a sum of two fourth powers, or in general for any number that is a power greater than the second to be the sum of two like powers. I have discovered a truly remarkable proof [of this theorem], but this margin is too small to contain it.” For centuries mathematicians were baffled by this statement, for no one could prove or disprove Fermat’s last theorem.

Proofs for many specific values of n were devised, however. For example, Fermat himself did a proof of another theorem that effectively solved the case for n = 4, and by 1993, with the help of computers, it was confirmed for all prime numbers n < 4,000,000. By that time, mathematicians had discovered that proving a special case of a result from algebraic geometry and number theory known as the Shimura-Taniyama-Weil conjecture would be equivalent to proving Fermat’s last theorem.

The English mathematician Andrew Wiles (who had been interested in the theorem since the age of 10) presented a proof of the Shimura-Taniyama-Weil conjecture in 1993. An error was found in this proof, however, but, with help from his former student Richard Taylor, Wiles finally devised a proof of Fermat’s last theorem, which was published in 1995 in the Journal Annals of Mathematics. That centuries had passed without a proof had led many mathematicians to suspect that Fermat was mistaken in thinking he actually had a proof.