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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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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
Night
Problem
Years
Woke
Time
Obsessed
Thinking
Eight
Went
Sleep
Morning

More quotes by Andrew Wiles

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I loved doing problems in school.
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Always try the problem that matters most to you.
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Fermat said he had a proof.
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The only way I could relax was when I was with my children.
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I never use a computer.
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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.
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I grew up in Cambridge in England, and my love of mathematics dates from those early childhood days.
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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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There are proofs that date back to the Greeks that are still valid today.
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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.
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Pure mathematicians just love to try unsolved problems - they love a challenge.
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But the best problem I ever found, I found in my local public library.
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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
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However impenetrable it seems, if you don't try it, then you can never do it.
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That particular odyssey is now over. My mind is now at rest.
Andrew Wiles
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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
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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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The definition of a good mathematical problem is the mathematics it generates rather than the problem itself.
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 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