Mathematicians aren't satisfied because they know there are no solutions up to four million or four billion, they really want to know that there are no solutions up to infinity.

Next quotes

• Andrew Wiles:

  Fermat said he had a proof.

• Andrew Wiles:

  There are proofs that date back to the Greeks that are still valid today.

• Andrew Wiles:

  Well, some mathematics problems look simple, and you try them for a year or so, and then you try th

• Andrew Wiles:

  Pure mathematicians just love to try unsolved problems - they love a challenge.

• Andrew Wiles:

  It's fine to work on any problem, so long as it generates interesting mathematics along the way - e

• Andrew Wiles:

  The definition of a good mathematical problem is the mathematics it generates rather than the probl

• Andrew Wiles:

  I realized that anything to do with Fermat's Last Theorem generates too much interest.

• Andrew Wiles:

  I tried to fit it in with some previous broad conceptual understanding of some part of mathematics

• Andrew Wiles:

  I really believed that I was on the right track, but that did not mean that I would necessarily rea

• Andrew Wiles:

  Perhaps the methods I needed to complete the proof would not be invented for a hundred years. So ev