he had been attracted by having the opportunity to reveal his work to such an eminent audience, the main reason for making the announcement at the Newton Institute was that it was in his home town, Cambridge. This was where Wiles had been born, it was here he grew up and developed his passion for numbers, and it was in Cambridge that he had alighted on the problem which was to dominate the rest of his life.
The Last Problem
In 1963, when he was ten years old, Andrew Wiles was already fascinated by mathematics. ‘I loved doing the problems in school, I’d take them home and make up new ones of my own. But the best problem I ever found I discovered in my local library.’
One day, while wandering home from school, young Wiles decided to visit the library in Milton Road. It was rather impoverished compared with the libraries of the colleges, but nonetheless it had a generous collection of puzzle books and this is what often caught Andrew’s attention. These books were packed with all sorts of scientific conundrums and mathematical riddles, and for each question the solution would be conveniently laid out somewhere in the final few pages. But this time Andrew was drawn to a book with only one problem, and no solution.
The book was The Last Problem by Eric Temple Bell, the history of a mathematical problem which has its roots in ancient Greece, but which only reached full maturity in the seventeenth century. It was then that the great French mathematician Pierre de Fermat inadvertently set it as a challenge for the rest of the world. One great mathematician after another had been humbled by Fermat’s legacy and for three hundred years nobody had been able to solve it. There are other unsolved questions in mathematics, but what makes Fermat’s problem so special is its deceptive simplicity. Thirty years after first reading Bell’s account, Wiles told me how he felt the moment he was introduced to Fermat’s Last Theorem: ‘It looked so simple, and yet all the great mathematicians in history couldn’t solve it. Here was a problem that I, a ten-year-old, could understand and I knew from that moment that I would never let it go. I had to solve it.’
The problem looks so straightforward because it is based on the one piece of mathematics that everyone can remember – Pythagoras’ theorem:
In a right-angled triangle the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides.
As a result of this Pythagorean ditty, the theorem has been scorched into millions if not billions of human brains. It is the fundamental theorem that every innocent schoolchild is forced to learn. But despite the fact that it can be understood by a ten-year-old, Pythagoras’ creation was the inspiration for a problem which had thwarted the greatest mathematical minds of history.
Pythagoras of Samos was one of the most influential and yet mysterious figures in mathematics. Because there are no first-hand accounts of his life and work, he is shrouded in myth and legend, making it difficult for historians to separate fact from fiction. What seems certain is that Pythagoras developed the idea of numerical logic and was responsible for the first golden age of mathematics. Thanks to his genius numbers were no longer merely used to count and calculate, but were appreciated in their own right. He studied the properties of particular numbers, the relationships between them and the patterns they formed. He realised that numbers exist independently of the tangible world and therefore their study was untainted by the inaccuracies of perception. This meant he could discover truths which were independent of opinion or prejudice and which were more absolute than any previous knowledge.
Living in the sixth century BC, Pythagoras gained his mathematical skills on his travels throughout the ancient world. Some tales would have us believe that he travelled as far as India and Britain, but what is more certain is that he gathered many mathematical techniques and tools from the Egyptians and Babylonians. Both these ancient peoples had gone beyond the limits of simple counting and were capable of performing complex calculations which enabled them to create sophisticated accounting systems and construct elaborate buildings. Indeed they saw mathematics as merely a tool for solving practical problems; the motivation behind discovering some of the basic rules of geometry was to allow reconstruction of field boundaries which were lost in the annual flooding of the Nile. The word itself, geometry, means ‘to measure the earth’.
Pythagoras observed that the Egyptians and Babylonians conducted each calculation in the form of a recipe which could be followed blindly. The recipes, which would have been passed down through the generations, always gave the correct answer and so nobody bothered to question them or explore the logic underlying the equations. What was important for these civilisations was that a calculation worked – why it worked was irrelevant.
After twenty years of travel Pythagoras had assimilated all the mathematical rules in the known world. He set sail for his home island of Samos in the Aegean Sea with the intention of founding a school devoted to the study of philosophy and in particular concerned with research into his newly acquired mathematical rules. He wanted to understand numbers, not merely exploit them. He hoped to find a plentiful supply of free-thinking students who could help him develop radical new philosophies, but during his absence the tyrant Polycrates had turned the once liberal Samos into an intolerant and conservative society. Polycrates invited Pythagoras to join his court, but the philosopher realised that this was only a manoeuvre aimed at silencing him and therefore declined the honour. Instead he left the city in favour of a cave in a remote part of the island, where he could contemplate without fear of persecution.
Pythagoras did not relish his isolation and eventually resorted to bribing a young boy to be his first pupil. The identity of the young boy is uncertain but some historians have suggested that his name was also Pythagoras, and that the student would later gain fame as the first person to suggest that athletes should eat meat to improve their physique. Pythagoras, the teacher, paid his student three oboli for each lesson he attended and noticed that as the weeks passed the boy’s initial reluctance to learn was transformed into an enthusiasm for knowledge. To test his pupil Pythagoras pretended that he could no longer afford to pay the student and that the lessons would have to stop, at which point the boy offered to pay for his education rather than have it ended. The pupil had become a disciple. Unfortunately this was Pythagoras’ only conversion on Samos. He did temporarily establish a school, known as the Semicircle of Pythagoras, but his views on social reform were unacceptable and the philosopher was forced to flee the colony with his mother and his one and only disciple.
Pythagoras departed for southern Italy, which was then a part of Magna Graecia, and settled in Croton where he was fortunate in finding the ideal patron in Milo, the wealthiest man in Croton and one of the strongest men in history. Although Pythagoras’ reputation as the sage of Samos was already spreading across Greece, Milo’s fame was even greater. Milo was a man of Herculean proportions who had been champion of the Olympic and Pythian Games a record twelve times. In addition to his athleticism Milo also appreciated and studied philosophy and mathematics. He set aside part of his house and provided Pythagoras with enough room to establish a school. So it was that the most creative mind and the most powerful body formed a partnership.
Secure in his new home Pythagoras founded the Pythagorean Brotherhood – a band of six hundred followers who were capable not only of understanding his teachings, but who could add to them by creating new ideas and proofs. Upon entering the Brotherhood each follower had to donate all their worldly possessions to a common fund and should anybody ever leave they would receive twice the amount they had originally donated and a tombstone would be erected in their memory. The Brotherhood was an egalitarian school and included several sisters. Pythagoras’ favourite student was Milo’s own daughter, the beautiful Theano, and, despite the difference in their ages, they eventually married.
Soon after founding the Brotherhood, Pythagoras coined the word philosopher, and in so doing defined the aims of his school. While attending the Olympic Games, Leon, Prince of Phlius, asked Pythagoras how he would describe himself. Pythagoras replied, ‘I am a philosopher,’ but Leon had not heard the word before and asked him to explain.
Life, Prince Leon, may well be compared with these public Games for in the vast crowd assembled here some are attracted by the acquisition of gain, others are led on