Fermat's Last Theorem
Okay, so imagine you have a really cool puzzle with numbers. It's like a big mystery that nobody has been able to figure out. This puzzle is called "Fermat's Last Theorem."
A long time ago, a guy named Fermat said that he had found a really awesome way to solve this puzzle. But he didn't write down his solution, and nobody else has been able to figure it out since then.
For a really long time, people have been trying to solve this puzzle, and they couldn't even figure out if Fermat's solution was the right one or not! It was a mystery that nobody could solve.
But then, in the 1990s, a guy named Andrew Wiles finally figured it out! He found a way to solve the puzzle, and he proved that Fermat was right all along.
The puzzle has to do with something called "Pythagorean triplets." This just means that there are certain sets of three numbers that work really well together. And Fermat believed that there were no sets of Pythagorean triplets that could be raised to the 3rd power (called "cubed") and added together to equal another number that was also cubed.
For a long time, nobody could prove or disprove this theory. But then Andrew Wiles came along and figured out how to prove it. He used something called "modular forms," which are like special math tools that help you solve really tough problems. And after a LOT of hard work, he finally solved the puzzle!
Now we know that Fermat was right – there really aren't any sets of Pythagorean triplets that work the way he thought they didn't. And we also know that Andrew Wiles is a REALLY smart guy!
A long time ago, a guy named Fermat said that he had found a really awesome way to solve this puzzle. But he didn't write down his solution, and nobody else has been able to figure it out since then.
For a really long time, people have been trying to solve this puzzle, and they couldn't even figure out if Fermat's solution was the right one or not! It was a mystery that nobody could solve.
But then, in the 1990s, a guy named Andrew Wiles finally figured it out! He found a way to solve the puzzle, and he proved that Fermat was right all along.
The puzzle has to do with something called "Pythagorean triplets." This just means that there are certain sets of three numbers that work really well together. And Fermat believed that there were no sets of Pythagorean triplets that could be raised to the 3rd power (called "cubed") and added together to equal another number that was also cubed.
For a long time, nobody could prove or disprove this theory. But then Andrew Wiles came along and figured out how to prove it. He used something called "modular forms," which are like special math tools that help you solve really tough problems. And after a LOT of hard work, he finally solved the puzzle!
Now we know that Fermat was right – there really aren't any sets of Pythagorean triplets that work the way he thought they didn't. And we also know that Andrew Wiles is a REALLY smart guy!
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