Comments on: Fermat’s Last Theorem

By: Niels Christian Olsen

Niels Christian Olsen — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:47:00 +0000

I think as a academic person myself, it has more to do with: To do / to achive something nobody have done before. Like climbing the higest mountain in the world for the first time in human history. Or be the first man on the poles. It takes the same dedication just behind the books instead of something physical.

By: Daryl Walters

Daryl Walters — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 20:25:00 +0000

Wow, didn’t understand the maths at all. Didn’t matter. To see someone almost break down to tears describing how he had a (as AA members would say) “moment of clarity”, really blew me away! He knew in that moment that he had reached the pinacle of his life. Amazing that maths could be so important to someone’s life! This doc just proves to me how little I understand about this world. Great doc!

By: Daryl Walters

Daryl Walters — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 20:14:00 +0000

Yes, (Mark Bolan)!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 10:40:00 +0000

What I gathered from this Doc that touched me was this man’s focus and determination to achieve this life long goal of solving this math puzzle. The one mathemetician was so close to solving the problem he just gave up and committed suicide thats really sad. Really to be honest Fermat gave up on solving the problem too. I think someone else will come along again and say that he didn’t fully solve that problem. I’m not one of the genius math wizzez but how my mind understands it, math pretty much is never ending it keeps going. It goes forward then backwards. You add then subtract. How can you solve something that is never ending. Thats how I feel about debates on religion it just never stops. :0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nek_YlUGGBo&feature=related
Link of a Number Pyramid for the ungenius math people

Great Doc
Deuces Peace I’m Out

By: Tim Fuller

Tim Fuller — Tue, 31 May 2011 18:29:00 +0000

Absolutely one of the most intimate looks into the struggles and successes of a very special mathematical mind . Don’t feel bad if you don’t understand the math. It’s definitely rocket science…lol. Doesn’t matter one iota because the gory mathematical details are glossed over quite nicely and the supporting CGI 3-D models are something you never really get tired of seeing. Like Hubble images.

The degree of humanity and emotion on display in this documentary is profound. You’re given a glimpse into the private thoughts and emotions of a man who is obviously not comfortable with the spotlight.

In the one of the most moving scenes in the documentary, Mr. Wells is recalling the relief he felt when finally solved the final lingering problems with his proof and he almost cries on camera, brought on by a near overwhelming mixture of relief and sadness. He was happy to have finally and definitely solved the problem. The sadness and tears seemed more a product of the realization that having solved the thing that puzzled him and motivated him for decades he couldn’t picture any future challenge that would excite his intellect in the same manner.

If you like stuff like this documentary, you’ll probably love anything involving Richard Feynman (RIP) that you can find.

Enjoy.

By: Epicurean_Logic

Epicurean_Logic — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 23:33:00 +0000

@ Azilda, you have indirectly touched on a few of the fundamental and not-so-well-known themes that reccur in Mathematics. Firstly we are used to thinking that maths is boring because there is one answer and no subjective debate on any particular topic. It’s either right or wrong. What is less well know is that there are many routes though any given problem some using elegant ‘simple’ maths and others using indirect complicated ideas drawing on many different branches of the subject and your musical analogy illustrated this idea well.

Fermat’s marign proof: The margins were a lot bigger in those days! But seriously I like to think that it was a joke by the great man, he knew that it was an extremely complicated and drawn out method of reasoning and added some all-be-it unaccessible to the non-mathematition style humour. It certainly adds charm and mystery to the story.

‘There is not 1 problem bar none that was thought by a human that cannot be solved.’

It has been proven by the great and admittedly insane Austrian mathematition Kurt Godel ( He of time travel to the past is possible if we can spin the universe about a point fame) that in any logical system there will ALWAYS be some ideas that are true that will be non-provable! A side lemma of the celebrated Incompleteness theorem.

A philosophically profound statement demonstating that we will never know the answers to everything. You can imagine… his ideas went down like a lead ballon in mathematical circles.

By: Azilda

Azilda — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 23:00:00 +0000

As a i wrote my previous comment i had not finished watching the movie yet. When at the end he says…”Fermat could not have this proven, it’s a 20th century proof, there is no way this could have been proven before the 20th century”.
I was reminded of a situation one evening long time ago. I was visiting some musician friends. There were music sheets on the table and i started looking through them, I came upon two different sheets for the melody of Bourrée. One looked very simple as if a child could have played it and the other looked extremely complicated as if only a master could read and play such intricacy of music. I asked my friend to play Bourrée from the two different sheets alternatively so i could hear the difference. He played it on the violon, i must say to him they were very different but to me they “almost” sounded exactly the same.
So could it be that Andrew Wiles found the intricate way of explaining something that Fermat could explain in a very simple way?
I don’t know…as i wrote under this comment….i am no mathematician, i am a simple person who believe that the infinitely small has a perfect companion in the infinitely big!
Great doc!

By: Azilda

Azilda — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 22:35:00 +0000

There is not 1 problem bar none that was thought by a human that cannot be solved. I am tempted to think the reason for this is simply because all problems immerge from a oneness within that wants us to discover every Thing.
If i was forced to erase the life i have lived and was offered in exchange to relive only a different one, i would come back as a hyppie (living of and on the land) mathematician, one day gardening and one day puzzling…. on and on and on…. I believe mathematic is a completely different language, one that i do not speak a word of. Although i am not bilangual in numbers as i am in letters, i sense that mathematic talks of the unknown like nothing else.
My mind can think in very magical ways but my mouth and fingers can’t and i believe if i could speak math i could do magic.
I may still find the path a different way, i will never cease to search because this is the life i live and i love it!
az

By: Manch

Manch — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 01:45:33 +0000

Fascinating! I loved this video. As a child I also was fascinated by Fermat riddle. I wonder if Fermat really had a proof…

By: Doc

Doc — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 13:03:06 +0000

Great!

By: paul

paul — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 22:06:45 +0000

Tom, I am the same Paul’s comment 2. I apologize for the incorrect term “book” instead of “book”. The Prof. Onofrio Gallo, non-academic and original mathematician born May 13, 1946 at Cervinara (a short biobibliography is in caudium.myblog.it in / … / citizen-cervinara cittadini illustri.html). Wiles’s proof is indirect as you well said. The fact that you did not know the name, or proved Fermat’s Last Theorem (FLT), or that Onofrio Gallo went on TV, since he is not academic, it is the fault of everyone and anyone. You’ll learn much more about that later explanations of the Prof. Gallo on the failure to generations of mathematicians in the search for a general proof or FLT. You can see about the site tuttidentro.wordpress.com/…/homer-simpson-ci-prova-col-teorema-di-fermat/ – I, too, until recently did not know neither the existence of Prof. Onofrio Gallo, nor of his Theorem Mirabilis and neither of his Theorem RH-Mirabilis, (ex-Riemann Hypothesis, as demonstrated in only seven rows from the cervinarese mathematician in March 2005 and disseminated on the Web April 14, 2010. Read for yourself), filed with the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters April 30, 2010. I think you’d be surprised how much you know. Paul.

By: Tom (369.tommo@gmail.com)

Tom (369.tommo@gmail.com) — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 11:11:53 +0000

paul,

Before I move on to the main content of my comment, are you the same Paul who wrote comment 2?

Forgive my ignorance here however, what is a “libro”? Most of what you wrote went well over my head. The one exception was what you said about Onofrio Gallo (I confess I have never heard of him but I do not mix in mathematics circles). You write that he obtained a direct proof in 6 pages. I’ll confess again, if there is a technical distinction between direct and indirect proof, I am not aware of it. With my layman’s definition, I can see how the Wiles proof is indirect with the incorporation of a number of branches of mathematics.

Key question: if Onofrio Gallo had already solved it, why did Wiles attempt it? As the documentary shows, it took Wiles years – and sequestered away. From what I saw of the documentary, it seems that mathematicians who operate at this level are intimately familiar with what the other is doing. Hard to imagine that Gallo’s proof would go unnoticed – especially given the history of the problem since Fermat first proposed it. As a layman, I am aware of the Wiles breakthrough. I still remember seeing it on the news back in 1993 and talking to people about it. Gallo is a man who, as I said, I haven’t heard of.

Tom.

PS. I am the same Tom who wrote comment 4.

By: paul

paul — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 00:44:18 +0000

About Simon Singh and his book Fermat’s Last Theorem. This is a nice libro.I think however, that its continuation will soon be written somewhere else (or the same Singh, who knows?) and, paradoxically, seems to be starting all over again. As I understood before indirect proof of
Fermat’s Last Theorem by Wiles and Taylor there was that of the Italian mathematician Onofrio Gallo (b. in Cervinara, Caudina Valley) who has obtained a short original proof(6 pages) and in a direct way .It seems to be the only direct proof currently existing.But the most surprising thing is that Fermat’s Last Theorem is a special case of the so-called MIRABILS THEOREM OF GALLO (December 27, 1993, Rome) based on a theory even more surprising and original (glimpsed just by the French mathematician E, Galois) that manages to combine an equation to an identity in a non eucledian logic. Paul

By: esmuziq

esmuziq — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 18:25:34 +0000

respect

By: toodance

toodance — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 20:41:17 +0000

@gotama
re: doughnut maths
hmm
Wondering if the Extra Long Gotama Sugary Apple Doughnuts Are The Best Theorem linked to the Baker conjecture, 12+1=dozen…