Quotes by Andrew Wiles

About Andrew Wiles:

Sir Andrew John Wiles is a British mathematician and a Royal Society Research Professor at the University of Oxford, specialising in number theory. He is most notable for proving Fermat's Last Theorem.
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I loved doing problems in school. I'd take them home and make up new ones of my own. But the best problem I ever found, I found in my local public library. I was just browsing through the section of math books and I found this one book, which was all...

Andrew Wiles

But the best problem I ever found, I found in my local public library.

Andrew Wiles

There's also a sense of freedom. I was so obsessed by this problem that I was thinking about if all the time - when I woke up in the morning, when I went to sleep at night, and that went on for eight years.

Andrew Wiles

The definition of a good mathematical problem is the mathematics it generates rather than the problem itself.

Andrew Wiles

I hope that seeing the excitement of solving this problem will make young mathematicians realize that there are lots and lots of other problems in mathematics which are going to be just as challenging in the future.

Andrew Wiles

I had this rare privilege of being able to pursue in my adult life, what had been my childhood dream.

Andrew Wiles

I know it's a rare privilege, but if one can really tackle something in adult life that means that much to you, then it's more rewarding than anything I can imagine.

Andrew Wiles

I grew up in Cambridge in England, and my love of mathematics dates from those early childhood days.

Andrew Wiles

Pure mathematicians just love to try unsolved problems - they love a challenge.

Andrew Wiles

I was so obsessed by this problem that I was thinking about it all the time - when I woke up in the morning, when I went to sleep at night - and that went on for eight years.

Andrew Wiles

Just because we can't find a solution it doesn't mean that there isn't one.

Andrew Wiles

Mathematicians aren't satisfied because they know there are no solutions up to four million or four billion, they really want to know that there are no solutions up to infinity.

Andrew Wiles

Fermat said he had a proof.

Andrew Wiles

There are proofs that date back to the Greeks that are still valid today.

Andrew Wiles

Well, some mathematics problems look simple, and you try them for a year or so, and then you try them for a hundred years, and it turns out that they're extremely hard to solve.

Andrew Wiles

I realized that anything to do with Fermat's Last Theorem generates too much interest.

Andrew Wiles

I really believed that I was on the right track, but that did not mean that I would necessarily reach my goal.

Andrew Wiles

Perhaps the methods I needed to complete the proof would not be invented for a hundred years. So even if I was on the right track, I could be living in the wrong century.

Andrew Wiles

I don't believe Fermat had a proof. I think he fooled himself into thinking he had a proof.

Andrew Wiles

We've lost something that's been with us for so long, and something that drew a lot of us into mathematics. But perhaps that's always the way with math problems, and we just have to find new ones to capture our attention.

Andrew Wiles

Author Bio

  • NameAndrew Wiles
  • DescriptionBritish mathematician
  • BornApril 11, 1953
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionMathematician
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship; MacArthur Fellows Program; Fellow Of The Royal Society; Knight Commander Of The Order Of The British Empire; Royal Medal