It’s my personal opinion that Fermat, in his margin notes, never knew of the elliptic curve solution that Andrew Wiles found.
Thusly…
I think Stephen Hawking’s chair, in the event of his death, should be pre-programmed with the phrase…
“Wait, I have it all. It’s simple……”
If he couldn’t find it. The next great minds, in generations to come, should be inspired to know that one of our own, may have found the answer!
I agree. It’s a bit like ‘there’s a cheque in the post’.
(although I think it’s more likely that he thought he had a solution, but was mistaken)
It’s essentially impossible that Fermat knew of Wiles’s solution. It took 350 years to develop the math necessary for it. There has been a reasonably plausible pseudo-solution proposed that may be what Fermat was thinking or and is consistent with the state of math in Fermat’s time. In calling it a pseudo-solution, I mean that it doesn’t quite work, but you can easily imagine Fermat mistakenly thinking that it does work.
Fermat also may have realized later that his proof was flawed, and didn’t bother to erase the comment from the margin.
I would love it if any celebrity chef’s last words were “It’s a cookbook.”
Gotcha Ya!!!
At the (enjoyable) risk of invoking Douglas Adams, may I ask, the answer to what?