Fermat's Last Theorem: 1637—1988

Abstract

Around 1637 the French jurist and amateur mathematician Pierre de Fermat wrote in the margin of his copy of Diophantus's Arithmetic that he had a “truly marvelous” proof that the equation xn + yn = zn has no solution in positive integers if n > 2. Unfortunately the margin was too narrow to contain it. In 1988 the world thought that the Japanese mathematician Yoichi Miyaoka, working at the Max Planck Institute in Bonn, West Germany, might have discovered a proof of this theorem. Such a proof would be of considerable interest because no evidence has been found that Fermat ever wrote one down, and no one has been able to find one in the 350 years since. In fact Miyaoka's announcement turned out to be premature, and a few weeks later articles reported holes in his argument that could not be repaired.