Andrew Wiles

Sir Andrew John Wiles,(born on 11 April

1953) is a British mathematician and a

Royal Society Research Professor at the

University of Oxford, specialising in

number theory. He is most notable for

proving Fermat's Last Theorem.

Introduction

Mathematical career

Wiles earned his bachelor's degree in

mathematics in 1974 after his study at Merton

College, Oxford, and a PhD in 1980, after his

research at Clare College, Cambridge. After a

stay at the Institute for Advanced Study in New

Jersey in 1981, Wiles became a professor at

Princeton University

The proof of Fermat's Last

Theorem

Starting in the summer of 1986, based on successive progress of the previous few years of Gerhard Frey, Jean-Pierre Serre and Ken Ribet, it became clear that Fermat's Last Theorem could be proven as a corollary of a limited form of the modularity theorem (unproven at the time and then known as the "Taniyama–Shimura-Weil conjecture").

Recognition by the media

His proof of Fermat's Last Theorem has

stood up to the scrutiny of the world's

mathematical experts. Wiles was interviewed

for an episode of the BBC documentary

series Horizon that focused on Fermat's Last

Theorem. This was renamed "The Proof",

and it was made an episode of the Public

Broadcasting Service's science television

series Nova.

Some of his pictures