Abstract
It is arguably true that Fermat’s Last Theorem (FLT) has been the most famous of all mathematical problems for at least three centuries. There has been debate about whether it is a serious and important problem or merely a curiosity, but there can be no denying its popularity. Generations of mathematicians, both professional and amateur, have tried their hand at solving it. These efforts have resulted in a mighty body of theory with many deep and important results. Nevertheless, until 1984, when G. Frey connected the problem in an intimate way with the arithmetic theory of elliptic curves and the conjecture of Taniyama-Shimura-Weil (after earlier work in the same direction by Y. Helloguarch), a solution seemed as far away as ever.
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Rosen, M. (1997). Remarks on the History of Fermat’s Last Theorem 1844 to 1984. In: Cornell, G., Silverman, J.H., Stevens, G. (eds) Modular Forms and Fermat’s Last Theorem. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-1974-3_19
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-1974-3_19
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