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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. There's no reason why these problems shouldn't be easy, and yet they turn out to be extremely intricate. Fermat's Last Theorem is the most beautiful example of this.

Andrew Wiles

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Andrew Wiles
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: April 11
Mathematician
University Teacher
Sir Andrew John Wiles
Andrew John Wiles
Andrew J. Wiles
Dr. Andrew Wiles
Prof. Sir Andrew Wiles FRS
Reason
Year
Extremely
Look
Turns
Shouldn
Looks
Lasts
Solve
Hard
Last
Mathematics
Trying
Simple
Hundred
Fermat
Years
Easy
Problems
Theorem
Beautiful
Example
Theorems
Problem
Turn
Intricate

More quotes by Andrew Wiles

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I carried this problem around in my head basically the whole time. I would wake up with it first thing in the morning, I would be thinking about it all day, and I would be thinking about it when I went to sleep. Without distraction I would have the same thing going round and round in my mind.
Andrew Wiles
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There are proofs that date back to the Greeks that are still valid today.
Andrew Wiles
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That particular odyssey is now over. My mind is now at rest.
Andrew Wiles
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It's fine to work on any problem, so long as it generates interesting mathematics along the way - even if you don't solve it at the end of the day.
Andrew Wiles
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Pure mathematicians just love to try unsolved problems - they love a challenge.
Andrew Wiles
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Always try the problem that matters most to you.
Andrew Wiles
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I tried to fit it in with some previous broad conceptual understanding of some part of mathematics that would clarify the particular problem I was thinking about.
Andrew Wiles
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But the best problem I ever found, I found in my local public library.
Andrew Wiles
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I had this rare privilege of being able to pursue in my adult life, what had been my childhood dream.
Andrew Wiles
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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
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The only way I could relax was when I was with my children.
Andrew Wiles
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Just because we can't find a solution it doesn't mean that there isn't one.
Andrew Wiles
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I really believed that I was on the right track, but that did not mean that I would necessarily reach my goal
Andrew Wiles
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However impenetrable it seems, if you don't try it, then you can never do it.
Andrew Wiles
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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
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The greatest problem for mathematicians now is probably the Riemann Hypothesis.
Andrew Wiles
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I never use a computer.
Andrew Wiles
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I loved doing problems in school.
Andrew Wiles
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Fermat said he had a proof.
Andrew Wiles
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Mathematics... is a bit like discovering oil. ... But mathematics has one great advantage over oil, in that no one has yet ... found a way that you can keep using the same oil forever.
Andrew Wiles