Andrew Wiles

Andrew Wiles is a British mathematician renowned for proving Fermat's Last Theorem, a problem that had remained unsolved for over 350 years. He is a Royal Society Research Professor at the University of Oxford and previously held a professorship at Princeton University. His proof, announced in 1993 and completed in 1994, stands as one of the most celebrated achievements in modern mathematics.

Early life and education

Born in Cambridge, he developed an early fascination with Fermat's Last Theorem after encountering it in a book at the Milton Road Library. He attended The Leys School before earning his undergraduate degree in mathematics from Merton College, Oxford in 1974. He pursued his doctoral studies at Clare College, Cambridge under the supervision of John Coates, completing his PhD in 1980 with research in Iwasawa theory and elliptic curves.

Career and research

After his PhD, Wiles held positions at Harvard University and the Institute for Advanced Study before joining the faculty at Princeton University in 1982. His early work focused on the deep connections between elliptic curves and modular forms, areas central to number theory. In 1986, after learning of the link established by Ken Ribet between the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture and Fermat's Last Theorem, he began working in secret on a proof, dedicating seven years to the endeavor while maintaining his regular teaching duties.

Proof of Fermat's Last Theorem

Wiles announced his proof in a series of three lectures at the Isaac Newton Institute in Cambridge in June 1993. The initial manuscript relied on constructing a Euler system using a method in Galois cohomology. However, a subtle error was found in a part of the argument involving the Kolyvagin–Flach method. Working with his former student Richard Taylor, he spent an additional year devising an alternative approach. The corrected proof, which established the modularity theorem for semistable elliptic curves, was published in 1995 in the Annals of Mathematics.

Recognition and awards

His achievement garnered numerous prestigious awards, including the Wolf Prize in Mathematics, the Royal Medal of the Royal Society, and the Ostrowski Prize. In 2016, he was awarded the Abel Prize, often described as the Nobel Prize of mathematics, with the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters citing his "stunning proof." He also received the Copley Medal in 2017 and is a foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences and the French Academy of Sciences.

Personal life

He is married to Nada Wiles, a former research fellow at Princeton University. The couple has three daughters. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2000 for services to mathematics, becoming Sir Andrew Wiles. He enjoys playing the piano and is known for his quiet and determined demeanor, which characterized his long solitary pursuit of one of mathematics' most elusive goals.

Category:British mathematicians Category:Abel Prize laureates Category:Fellows of the Royal Society Category:1953 births Category:Living people