Notes on Fermat's last theorem /

The dramatic confirmation in 1994 of Fermat's Last Theorem by Andrew Wiles and Richard Taylor certainly ranks as the single most prestigious mathematical breakthrough of the century, if not also the most important. The ferocious complexity of the proof has few rivals, especially if one considers not just the papers of Wiles, and Taylor and Wiles, but the voluminous and difficult literature from which they depart. The many sober expositions that we expect a result of this magnitude to receive are as yet slow in coming, whether by dint of the difficulties of the task or the rigors of the publishing process. Van der Poorten, an excellent mathematician in his own right, gives the wider mathematical audience something to read during the wait, not a redaction of the proof, not a formal monograph of any sort, but an idiosyncratic, occasionally even (intentionally) silly scrapbook offering some serious mathematical background for the result, as well as a personal snapshot of the scientific culture that received it. If Fermat's Last Theorem (the done deal) retains a small fraction of the glamour of Fermat's Last Theorem (the venerable chestnut), this book must find its way into the hands of every mathematically talented student from high school on up. All levels. D. V. Feldman University of New Hampshire