What starts as a simple counting problem with colored beads reveals one of number theory's most elegant results. This is Fermat's Little Theorem, discovered not through abstract algebra, but through ...

Like many math students, I had dreams of mathematical greatness. I thought I was close once. A difficult algebra problem in college kept me working late into the night. After hours of struggle, I felt ...

Joyeux anniversaire, Pierre de Fermat! Today is the French mathematician's 410th birthday. Fermat is best known as the originator or Fermat's Last Theorem, which consists of a deceptively ...

Mathematicians have shown Fermat's Last Theorem can be proved using only a small portion of Grothendieck's work. Specifically, the theorem can be justified using "finite order arithmetic." Fermat's ...

When British mathematician Andrew Wiles proved Fermat's last theorem in 1994, he ended a saga that had begun in the middle of the 17th century. But like a good storyteller, he left unanswered a ...

Fermat’s Last Theorem is so simple to state, but so hard to prove. Though the 350-year-old claim is a straightforward one about integers, the proof that University of Oxford mathematician Andrew Wiles ...

Google’s Doodles have been brainier lately, and Wednesday’s Doodle is no exception. The doodle features a mathematical equation scribbled onto a chalkboard over the “erased” Google logo. What is this ...

The proof Wiles finally came up with (helped by Richard Taylor) was something Fermat would never have dreamed up. It tackled the theorem indirectly, by means of an enormous bridge that mathematicians ...

Pierre de Fermat left behind a truly tantalizing hint of a proof when he died—one that mathematicians struggled to complete for centuries. François de Poilly, wikimedia commons The story is familiar ...

Mathematicians have figured out how to expand the reach of a mysterious bridge connecting two distant continents in the mathematical world. The proof Wiles finally came up with (helped by Richard ...