A deterministic proof seems within reach, until composite numbers start masquerading as primes. This video traces how ...

For more than 350 years, a mathematics problem whose solution was considered the Holy Grail to the greatest mathematician minds had remained unsolved. Now, a team of mathematicians led by a prominent ...

Joyeux anniversaire, Pierre de Fermat! Today is the French mathematician's 410th birthday. Fermat is best known as the originator or Fermat's Last Theorem, which consists of a deceptively ...

Like many math students, I had dreams of mathematical greatness. I thought I was close once. A difficult algebra problem in college kept me working late into the night. After hours of struggle, I felt ...

When British mathematician Andrew Wiles proved Fermat's last theorem in 1994, he ended a saga that had begun in the middle of the 17th century. But like a good storyteller, he left unanswered a ...

Mathematicians have shown Fermat's Last Theorem can be proved using only a small portion of Grothendieck's work. Specifically, the theorem can be justified using "finite order arithmetic." Fermat's ...

The proof Wiles finally came up with (helped by Richard Taylor) was something Fermat would never have dreamed up. It tackled the theorem indirectly, by means of an enormous bridge that mathematicians ...

Fermat’s Last Theorem is so simple to state, but so hard to prove. Though the 350-year-old claim is a straightforward one about integers, the proof that University of Oxford mathematician Andrew Wiles ...

Google’s Doodles have been brainier lately, and Wednesday’s Doodle is no exception. The doodle features a mathematical equation scribbled onto a chalkboard over the “erased” Google logo. What is this ...