On June 23, 1993, the mathematician Andrew Wiles gave the last of three lectures detailing his solution to Fermat’s last theorem, a problem that had remained unsolved for three and a half centuries.

Fermat’s Last Theorem is so simple to state, but so hard to prove. Though the 350-year-old claim is a straightforward one about integers, the proof that University of Oxford mathematician Andrew Wiles ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Ewan Spence covers the digital worlds of mobile technology. Just before his death, Pierre de Fermat sealed his place in history ...

The proof Wiles finally came up with (helped by Richard Taylor) was something Fermat would never have dreamed up. It tackled the theorem indirectly, by means of an enormous bridge that mathematicians ...

When Andrew Wiles received the £500,000 Abel Prize for mathematics last week, there was a general sense of “At last!” in the mathematical community. After all, Professor Wiles had already won almost ...

British number theorist Andrew Wiles has received the 2016 Abel Prize for his solution to Fermat’s last theorem — a problem that stumped some of the world’s greatest minds for three and a half ...

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The most exciting part of “The Last Theorem” (Del Rey: 304 pp., $27), the novel by the late Arthur C. Clarke and fellow science fiction veteran Frederik Pohl, has nothing to do with the titular ...

In an episode of The Simpson’s called The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace, Homer appears to write a valid solution to defeat Fermat’s Last Theorem on a blackboard. But given that Fermat’s last theorem is ...