Top 39 Quotes & Sayings by Andrew Wiles

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English mathematician Andrew Wiles.

Last updated on November 4, 2024.

Sir Andrew John Wiles is an English mathematician and a Royal Society Research Professor at the University of Oxford, specializing in number theory. He is best known for proving Fermat's Last Theorem, for which he was awarded the 2016 Abel Prize and the 2017 Copley Medal by the Royal Society. He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2000, and in 2018, was appointed the first Regius Professor of Mathematics at Oxford. Wiles is also a 1997 MacArthur Fellow.

English - Mathematician | Born: April 11, 1953

Source: Wikipedia

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

Andrew Wiles

That particular odyssey is now over. My mind is now at rest.

Andrew Wiles

Always try the problem that matters most to you.

Andrew Wiles

It's fine to work on any problem, so long as it generates interesting mathematics along the way - even if you don't solve it at the end of the day.

Andrew Wiles

I grew up in Cambridge in England, and my love of mathematics dates from those early childhood days.

Andrew Wiles

There's also a sense of freedom. I was so obsessed by this problem that I was thinking about if all the time - when I woke up in the morning, when I went to sleep at night, and that went on for eight years.

Andrew Wiles

We've lost something that's been with us for so long, and something that drew a lot of us into mathematics. But perhaps that's always the way with math problems, and we just have to find new ones to capture our attention.

Andrew Wiles

Then when I reached college I realized that many people had thought about the problem during the 18th and 19th centuries and so I studied those methods.

Andrew Wiles

I'm sure that some of them will be very hard and I'll have a sense of achievement again, but nothing will mean the same to me - there's no other problem in mathematics that could hold me the way that this one did.

Andrew Wiles

I tried to fit it in with some previous broad conceptual understanding of some part of mathematics that would clarify the particular problem I was thinking about.

Andrew Wiles

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

Andrew Wiles

The only way I could relax was when I was with my children.

Andrew Wiles

Perhaps the methods I needed to complete the proof would not be invented for a hundred years. So even if I was on the right track, I could be living in the wrong century.

Andrew Wiles

I was so obsessed by this problem that I was thinking about it all the time - when I woke up in the morning, when I went to sleep at night - and that went on for eight years.

Andrew Wiles

I hope that seeing the excitement of solving this problem will make young mathematicians realize that there are lots and lots of other problems in mathematics which are going to be just as challenging in the future.

Andrew Wiles

Fermat said he had a proof.

Andrew Wiles

I had this rare privilege of being able to pursue in my adult life, what had been my childhood dream.

Andrew Wiles

I loved doing problems in school. I'd take them home and make up new ones of my own. But the best problem I ever found, I found in my local public library. I was just browsing through the section of math books and I found this one book, which was all about one particular problem - Fermat's Last Theorem.

Andrew Wiles

Just because we can't find a solution it doesn't mean that there isn't one.

Andrew Wiles

It could be that the methods needed to take the next step may simply be beyond present day mathematics. Perhaps the methods I needed to complete the proof would not be invented for a hundred years.

Andrew Wiles

Some mathematics problems look simple, and you try them for a year or so, and then you try them for a hundred years, and it turns out that they're extremely hard to solve. There's no reason why these problems shouldn't be easy, and yet they turn out to be extremely intricate.

Andrew Wiles

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

Andrew Wiles

I really believed that I was on the right track, but that did not mean that I would necessarily reach my goal.

Andrew Wiles

However impenetrable it seems, if you don't try it, then you can never do it.

Andrew Wiles

I don't believe Fermat had a proof. I think he fooled himself into thinking he had a proof.

Andrew Wiles

I know it's a rare privilege, but if one can really tackle something in adult life that means that much to you, then it's more rewarding than anything I can imagine.

Andrew Wiles

The greatest problem for mathematicians now is probably the Riemann Hypothesis.

Andrew Wiles

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

Andrew Wiles

Well, some mathematics problems look simple, and you try them for a year or so, and then you try them for a hundred years, and it turns out that they're extremely hard to solve.

Andrew Wiles

But the best problem I ever found, I found in my local public library.

Andrew Wiles

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.

Andrew Wiles

Then when I reached college, I realized that many people had thought about the problem during the 18th and 19th centuries and so I studied those methods.

Andrew Wiles

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

Andrew Wiles

Perhaps I could best describe my experience of doing mathematics in terms of entering a dark mansion. You go into the first room and it's dark, completely dark. You stumble around, bumping into the furniture. Gradually, you learn where each piece of furniture is. And finally, after six months or so, you find the light switch and turn it on. Suddenly, it's all illuminated and you can see exactly where you were. Then you enter the next dark room.

Andrew Wiles

I loved doing problems in school.

Andrew Wiles

I never use a computer.

Andrew Wiles

I carried this problem around in my head basically the whole time. I would wake up with it first thing in the morning, I would be thinking about it all day, and I would be thinking about it when I went to sleep. Without distraction I would have the same thing going round and round in my mind.

Andrew Wiles

Mathematics... is a bit like discovering oil. ... But mathematics has one great advantage over oil, in that no one has yet ... found a way that you can keep using the same oil forever.

Andrew Wiles

Top 39 Quotes & Sayings by Andrew Wiles

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