Simon Singh and Fermat's Last Theorem

Our Founder, Koshi Dhingra, had the pleasure of sitting down and chatting with Simon Singh. If you don’t know who Simon is, he is a British science author. His work contains a strong mathematical element to it. His works so far include The Code Book, Big Bang, Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial, The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets, and Fermat’s Last Theorem. Fermat’s Last Theorem really helped the science world and is a very interesting topic to take a look at! In fact, we have the link to his documentary, along with some questions that Simon came up with, which you can answer during or after the documentary. https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/fermats-last-theorem/

Here are 4 questions:

• The documentary is all about finding a mathematical proof. How is a mathematical proof different from a scientific or legal proof?
• The story concerns a proof discovered by Pierre de Fermat, but one that was never written down. The 20^th century proof discovered by Wiles is not the same a Fermat’s proof, because it is too modern and too complicated. Will Fermat’s original proof ever be discovered? Do you think Fermat ever had a proof?
• There was a rich prize offered for a proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem – do you think this prize was necessary in motivating mathematicians to find a proof?
• Can you find a proof to demonstrate that there is an infinite number of prime numbers?

Let us know your answers and find out more about Simon Singh and his work by heading over to his website.