1953-

British Mathematician

Andrew Wiles, born in 1953 in Cambridge, England, is perhaps the most celebrated living mathematician. He became an instant celebrity when he announced in 1993 that he had proven Fermat's Last Theorem. The proof of this theorem, one of the most famous unsolved problems in the history of mathematics, had eluded mathematicians for over three centuries.

Fermat's last theorem states that the equation x ⁿ+ yⁿ = zⁿ has no whole number solutions for any values of equation n greater than 2. In other words, equation x²+ y² = z² has whole number solutions (such as x=3, y=4, z=5), but x³+ y³= z³, x⁴+ y⁴= z⁴, etc., have no whole number solutions. The French mathematician Pierre Fermat (1601-1665) wrote in the margin of a book that he had discovered a remarkable proof for this theorem, but the margin was to small to contain it. For the...