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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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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
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Previous
Problem
Broads
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Broad
Thinking
Fit
Mathematics
Tried
Clarifying
Particular
Clarify
Understanding
Conceptual

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That particular odyssey is now over. My mind is now at rest.
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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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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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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.
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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 loved doing problems in school.
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Just because we can't find a solution it doesn't mean that there isn't one.
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However impenetrable it seems, if you don't try it, then you can never do it.
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I never use a computer.
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But the best problem I ever found, I found in my local public library.
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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.
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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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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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Then when I reached college, I realized that many people had thought about the problem during the 18th and 19th centuries and so I studied those methods.
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There are proofs that date back to the Greeks that are still valid today.
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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.
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I had this rare privilege of being able to pursue in my adult life, what had been my childhood dream.
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The definition of a good mathematical problem is the mathematics it generates rather than the problem itself.
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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.
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