Selected Lectures 1993; 100 minutes; DVD ISBN-10: 0-8218-4340-0 ISBN-13: 978-0-8218-4340-6 List Price: US$25 Order Code: DVD/89
| In 1637, Pierre de Fermat wrote his legendary marginal comment that \(x^n+y^n=z^n\) has no solution in positive integers when \(n\geq 3\). Fermat's Last Theorem has eluded proof over the centuries, stimulating a great deal of mathematical development. In 1993, Andrew Wiles announced his proof of this celebrated theorem. Wiles's main result, a special case of the Taniyama Conjecture, relies on a wide range of mathematical tools. A crucial link was a 1986 theorem that the Taniyama Conjecture implies Fermat's Last Theorem, proved by Kenneth Ribet, who gives the two lectures on this DVD. Presented just weeks after Wiles's now-historic announcement, these expository lectures describe the main ingredients in Wiles's results. The lectures would be accessible to advanced undergraduates and graduate students with some background in algebra and number theory. |