Timeline for How many people fully understand the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem?
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
30 events
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| Nov 2, 2018 at 16:52 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
replaced http://tea.mathoverflow.net/ with http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/
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| S Feb 4, 2016 at 20:46 | history | notice added | François G. Dorais | Historical significance | |
| S Feb 4, 2016 at 20:46 | history | locked | François G. Dorais | ||
| S Feb 4, 2016 at 16:32 | history | suggested | Ali Taghavi |
I add two tags
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| Feb 4, 2016 at 16:26 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Feb 4, 2016 at 16:32 | |||||
| Aug 2, 2010 at 11:27 | history | rollback | Wadim Zudilin |
Rollback to Revision 3
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| Aug 2, 2010 at 7:26 | history | edited | T.. |
edited tags
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| Aug 1, 2010 at 18:27 | history | edited | Will Jagy | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
link to meta
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| Aug 1, 2010 at 17:11 | comment | added | Hailong Dao | This question has a meta thread devoted to it: tea.mathoverflow.net/discussion/567/rapid-closing-of-questions | |
| Jul 31, 2010 at 23:46 | comment | added | Victor Protsak | Dear Matt, I feel like deferring to your authority is the only viable option:) | |
| Jul 31, 2010 at 21:16 | comment | added | Emerton | Dear Victor, I don't think that this is a question of gossip. Especially from an amateur interested in FLT, but incapable of understanding the proof (I don't know whether or not the OP is such), or even from a grad student or mathematician in another field, it is a reasonable question. Since accepting that FLT is proved in that case is a matter of deferring to authority, it is reasonable to ask how widely disseminated the understanding of the proof is. | |
| Jul 31, 2010 at 21:00 | comment | added | Victor Protsak | José, surely that is very frivolous interpretation of "questions that admit a precise answer" from the FAQ. There is a world of difference between a guesstimate of attendance at conferences and a serious analysis of a number of researchers working on a certain topic, let alone being capable of understanding a certain topic! The usefulness of an ad hoc answer for any future historians of science will be close to nil. And I think that gossip has no place at MO. | |
| Jul 31, 2010 at 18:55 | answer | added | Emerton | timeline score: 53 | |
| Jul 31, 2010 at 14:33 | history | reopened |
John Stillwell Martin Brandenburg Noah Snyder José Figueroa-O'Farrill Pete L. Clark |
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| Jul 31, 2010 at 14:27 | comment | added | José Figueroa-O'Farrill | I agree with Noah that as Emerton's answer suggests there is a precise (OP only asks for order of magnitude) answer to this question. It's borderline as to the mathematical relevance, but I would not mind seeing Emerton's answer as a real answer instead of as a comment. It could be historically interesting to observe, years from now, the average number of participants in typical conferences in this area of research. I think the MO community would do well to take a long-term view of MO! | |
| Jul 31, 2010 at 14:11 | comment | added | Noah Snyder | This question seems reasonably precise to me, and as Emerton explains it has a correct answer. | |
| Jul 31, 2010 at 13:00 | comment | added | Emerton | and understand both the overall structure and strategy, as well the technical details, of the proof of FLT itself (and various more recent related results). | |
| Jul 31, 2010 at 12:59 | comment | added | Emerton | probably not in the thousands. Of course, not all these people know all the details, but the people at the top of the field surely do. (Of course, there is a question of what "understand" means exactly. I don't know how many people have carefully studied all the details of the trace formula that underly Jacquet--Langlands, Langlands--Tunnell, and base-change, and have also carefully studied the details of $p$-adic Hodge theory that is used in the arguments. But certainly the top people do understand the significance of these techinques, and are fluent in their use and application, ... | |
| Jul 31, 2010 at 12:53 | comment | added | Emerton | Dear Michael, The methods introduced by Wiles, and by Taylor and Wiles, in the two papers that proved FLT, as well as the methods introduced by Ribet in his earlier paper reducing FLT to Shimura--Taniyama, are at the heart of much modern work in algebraic number theory and automorphic forms, so, such as the proofs of Serre's conj. and the Sato--Tate conj. Conferences/workshops in these fields typically attract on the order of magnitude of 100 or so particants, which gives you some sense of the number of students/researchers thinking about these questions: its in the tens or hundreds, but ... | |
| Jul 31, 2010 at 4:18 | comment | added | Qiaochu Yuan | @Andrew: if you think this question should be reopened, you should start a thread about it on meta. | |
| Jul 31, 2010 at 4:12 | history | edited | Qiaochu Yuan |
edited tags
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| Jul 31, 2010 at 4:10 | comment | added | JBL | Also, "meta" means tea.mathoverflow.net which is for discussions about MathOverflow. The MathOverflow Meta tag appears to be an independent misunderstanding of this by several different users. | |
| Jul 31, 2010 at 4:07 | comment | added | JBL | Also from the FAQ: "There's a place for discussion about mathematics, but it isn't MathOverflow. Blogs and threaded discussion forums are a more appropriate place for discussions." | |
| Jul 31, 2010 at 4:06 | comment | added | JBL | "The site works best for well-defined questions: math questions that actually have a specific answer. You'll notice that there is the occasional question making a list of something, asking about the workings of the mathematical community, or something else which isn't really a math question. Such questions can be helpful to the community, but it is extremely tricky to ask them in a way that produces a useful response. So if you're new to the site, we suggest you stick to asking precise math questions until you learn about the quirks of the community and the strengths of the medium." | |
| Jul 31, 2010 at 4:06 | comment | added | Gjergji Zaimi | This question doesn't have much to do with math or math education and is therefore not appropriate for MO, which has a very specific purpose and is not a chat room. As for the meta tag, well most questions tagged with it are closed so I don't know what purpose it's serving exactly... | |
| Jul 31, 2010 at 3:56 | comment | added | The Mathemagician | I have no idea why they closed this fascinating question,Micheal.None whatsoever. | |
| Jul 31, 2010 at 3:54 | history | closed |
Gjergji Zaimi Will Jagy Ryan Budney Andy Putman Victor Protsak |
off topic | |
| Jul 31, 2010 at 3:51 | comment | added | Michael | Isn't this appropriate for meta? | |
| Jul 31, 2010 at 3:49 | comment | added | Ryan Budney | I imagine this will be closed soon. Please read the FAQ. | |
| Jul 31, 2010 at 3:30 | history | asked | Michael | CC BY-SA 2.5 |