How Math’s Most Famous Proof Nearly Broke (2015)

Re:How Math’s Most Famous Proof Nearly Broke (2015) by nyc111 on Friday December 21, 2018 @12:03PM (#18734620)

A 200 page proof even if it is correct may not be the most elegant proof for this problem since Fermat noted that his proof was too long to fit on the margin. This suggests at most a one page proof.

Also I'm curious if it can be proved that only one proof is possible. There are several independent proofs of the Pythagoras theorem.

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Re:How Math’s Most Famous Proof Nearly Broke (2015) by coraltime on Friday December 21, 2018 @12:04PM (#18734629)

Fermat could have been mistaken about his proof, however.

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Re:How Math’s Most Famous Proof Nearly Broke (2015) by nyc111 on Friday December 21, 2018 @12:28PM (#18734801)

That's a possibility. But I still think there must be a more direct proof. A shorter proof that can be understood by anyone who is familiar with Euclid. I believe a proof by using only mathematical methods known to Fermat must be possible.

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Re:How Math’s Most Famous Proof Nearly Broke (2015) by Retra on Friday December 21, 2018 @01:43PM (#18735487)

You can make any proof as short as you want. Length of proof means almost nothing; it is a function of the language you choose to use.

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Re:How Math’s Most Famous Proof Nearly Broke (2015) by nyc111 on Friday December 21, 2018 @02:02PM (#18735629)

> You can make any proof as short as you want.

If so why did Wiley choose to write a 200 page proof while he could have stated it in one sentence?

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Re:How Math’s Most Famous Proof Nearly Broke (2015) by Retra on Wednesday January 02, 2019 @02:20PM (#18809144)

Because he was writing for a specific class of predetermined parsers, rather than an arbitrary one which was optimized for his proof.

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