Reddit mentions of Fermat's Last Theorem

Anyone who wants to learn more, please read Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh.

The introduction to the book reads-

I have a truly marvellous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain.’

It was with these words, written in the 1630s, that Pierre de Fermat intrigued and infuriated the mathematics community. For over 350 years, proving Fermat’s Last Theorem was the most notorious unsolved mathematical problem, a puzzle whose basics most children could grasp but whose solution eluded the greatest minds in the world. In 1993, after years of secret toil, Englishman Andrew Wiles announced to an astounded audience that he had cracked Fermat’s Last Theorem. He had no idea of the nightmare that lay ahead.In ‘Fermat’s Last Theorem’ Simon Singh has crafted a remarkable tale of intellectual endeavour spanning three centuries, and a moving testament to the obsession, sacrifice and extraordinary determination of Andrew Wiles: one man against all the odds.

If anyone has not read Fermat's Last Theorem, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy somewhere. It was a best-seller and is written such that a wide range of math backgrounds can follow it yet still find it mentally stimulating. I personally give it 10/10

At the end the author addresses Wiles finally conquering Fermat, and challenges the reader to make their own conclusion. An skeptic will undoubtedly conclude that Fermat made a trivial (and forgivable) error somewhere, therefore his math was indeed not a sufficiently rigorous proof. Whereas a reader that still has the twinkle in his eye for the wonders of math, knows that Fermat's original proof lies waiting for someone clever enough to find;)

Fermats Last Theorem by S Singh is a really good read

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fermats-Last-Theorem-Confounded-Greatest/dp/1841157910

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

Fermats Last Theorem - Simon Singh

On a related note, what are your favourite non-fiction books?

Simon Singh wrote a very good book on how it was solved, here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fermats-Last-Theorem-Simon-Singh/dp/1841157910

There is actually a book about this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fermats-Last-Theorem-confounded-greatest/dp/1841157910

A mathematician called Andrew Wiles spent over 30 years trying to prove this. He nearly lost his mind and family while doing so, but he finally did it in 1995.

Rather good book actually. As for the problem that's a lot of challenge to accept..

A few years ago I was in a similar situation to the students you describe and am now at one of the universities you mention, so these suggestions are bound on what I found useful, or would have liked in retrospect.

Do you know about nrich? They have some interesting puzzles, arranged by keystage. They used to have a forum 'Ask NRICH' which was great, but currently closed for renovation, so look out for its reopening.

If it doesn't already exist, encourage the students to set up a maths society, research into something they find interesting (you can give suggestions) and give a brief talk to their peers.

However, what most inspired me was my teachers talking about what they found interesting. At GCSE, my teacher told us about Cantor's infinities as a special treat one day; we had pictures of Escher drawings in the classroom. At A Level, my teacher used to come in with maths puzzles he'd been working on over the weekend, and programs he'd written to demonstrate them (in Processing & Mathematica). Encourage them to come to you with questions too!

You can recommend some books to get them hyped. Anything you've enjoyed. I'd recommend Gower's Introduction to Mathematics for an idea of what maths is really about (beyond crunching equations at GCSE & A Level). Singh's Fermat's Last Theorem and Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach are classics (especially on uni application forms) - the former an easy read, the latter somewhat more challenging. I'm sure you can find some more ideas on /r/mathbooks.

For STEP preparation, Siklos has an unbelievably helpful booklet. For the older ones, this would be instructive to look through even if they're not planning to apply for Cambridge.

Also (topical), arrange a class trip to see The Imitation Game!

There is an excellent book by simon singh.
Must read.


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fermats-Last-Theorem-Confounded-Greatest/dp/1841157910

If you want a really good read on the whole history of Fermat and the eventual proof, Simon Singh's book is amazing. I'm not a mathematician in the slightest but it's really enjoyable in that it explains things very simply and tells you lots of the hidden history along the way, along with lots of other math trivia.

Having just finished my A levels, it's all about looking at stuff beyond the syllabus.

As I'm more interested in physics, outside of the classroom I've looked at angular momentum, quantum physics, relativity, particle physics, and more.
As far as maths goes, the only maths that wasn't covered on my further maths course was some of the basic functions of vector field calculus. (I didn't actually do any of it, but just began to understand the concepts. This really tied in with the field stuff I was looking at in physics).

One of the best things to have during your A levels is a friend studying the same subjects as you, so you can talk about all the interesting stuff that you and they find out. I learnt so much in informal conversations with him and my teachers, and also looking stuff up online, it almost overshadows my actual A levels!

As far as books go, I can recommend plenty of physics books, but as far as maths goes I would recommend looking at Ian Stewart's works. Also, this book is interesting: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fermats-Last-Theorem-Simon-Singh/dp/1841157910
It doesn't contain a great deal of mathematics, but it is a very interesting read about the story of proving the theorem.

So Fermat was a complete douchenugget and would scribble mathematical theorems in the borders of his maths textbook, a copy of Diaphantus' Arithmetica, with claims that he had solved them, but would fail to include any kind of proof of his method. He was a French magistrate who lived in the 17th century and did maths as a hobby, but managed to create some of the most confounding maths problems that have ever been solved.

It would be one thing to make a load of unsupported claims and then have them turn out to be false - but people set to work on Fermat's unproven conjectures after his death and one by one, they were proven.

His Last Theorem, so called because it remained unsolved for hundreds of years, is the quite simple assertion that, where a, b and c are positive integers, it is impossible that a^n + b^n will ever equal c^n, where n is an integer greater than 2. Seems simple on the surface. But it was absolutely impenetrable.

I'm not nearly good enough with maths to lead you through the proof, but if you're interested then I would recommend Simon Singh's book by the same name. He does a fantastic job taking apart the process and it's the most interesting maths related thing I've ever read.

When the theorem was eventually proved by British mathematician Andrew Wiles in May 1995, 358 years after it had first been proposed, it made use of cutting edge mathematical tools which had not even been conceived in Fermat's time. So the question remains - did he have a better method, or did he merely get it wrong?