Fermat's Last Theorem Documentary

**Marm** · 03-06-2012 10:50 PM

Very good BBC documentary on how Andrew Wiles went about proving Fermat's Last Theorem through seven years of hard work.

Some of you may have seen it already, if you haven't and you're interested in mathematics, you should check it out.

**Quantiq** · 03-07-2012 05:01 AM

Very cool. Fermat's Last Theorem was one of the most difficult mathematical puzzles in history. It's amazing that Andrew Wiles, with 7 years of complete dedication and passion to his work was able to write a proof; very inspiring.

He was also knighted for his achievement.

**Xei** · 03-07-2012 06:21 AM

If you don't want to watch all of it, skip to 44:30. Really an amazing portrait there of intellectual struggle and achievement.

**melanieb** · 03-07-2012 06:34 AM

It's too bad that so many mathematicians look so...homely, at least in my experience.

Still, brilliant! I applaud.

**Xei** · 03-07-2012 06:41 AM

It really doesn't generalise, most of them are socially normal and there are just as many attractive ones as you'd get with normal people. They just happen to be very smart and like maths.

The only true stereotype in my experience is that there is a large gender imbalance towards males.

**melanieb** · 03-07-2012 08:42 PM

Males are typically better with math. It's statistically shown, and that's fine.

I generalize on the looks because I knew plenty of math ninjas, one of whom had over 100 trophies for math competitions in his living room while he was in high school. I liked them a lot, but yeah, more than half by far were...a little plain and homely. No big deal.