The CRAZY Amount of Math You Need for Fermat's Last Theorem! (1.4, 3)

[a-bison]

Fermat a menace for just leaving this problem on his paper's margins

[wargreymon]

You know the theorem (and the proof) is hard when it takes 20min to introduce the prerequisites

[Entropize]

As people suggest additional/different references, I will post them here:

Galois Theory: Stewart

[fawzibriedj]

This is a lifetime of reading...
But it's a motivation by itself

[Supercatzs]

truly inspiring that some people have spent thousands of hours mastering these courses and concepts in order to use all of those hours in trying to understand further unknown concepts in mathematics

[kruksog]

I have an undergratuate math degree, and I was happy with myself through maybe the first slide. "Crazy ammount" is right. I stopped being able to say "I can do that" very very early for how much longer the prerequisite list went.

[soyoltoi]

I feel like this strategy of learning all of the mathematics needed for FLT before having even read the proof is not the best. I think it would be a lot more motivating and perhaps more efficient to first read the theorem starting with some minimal amount prerequisites (I would be curious to know what you would consider that to be). You could then black boxing everything difficult and focus on the main ideas and intuitions with the help of your videos, only then going back and filling in the holes with the extra references in a second/third/fourth pass to reach a desired level of depth in understanding. Kind of like a mechanic who reads a millions books on engines without ever having popped open a hood vs. a mechanic getting their hands dirty early on to understand what is needed to be studied and how it's used based.

[ai_serf]

okay, i'm 40 now, i should be able to finish all these books by the time I'm 50. /REMIND IN 10 YEARS

[acatisfinetoo]

It's crazy how a relatively simple formula thought up 100's of years ago required all this modren advanced math to solve 😮

[TheJara]

Nice attempt man, thanks for the overview

[kwiky]

Honestly i’ve actually Always wondered how you solve these awesome theorems. But it was only a thought. And now there’s a 20 min vid about everything you need to know

[MichaelGuerry]

One small correction I noticed, Principles of algebraic geometry was Griffiths and Harris. Fulton and Harris was Representation theory a first course.

[sieni]

"Just finish Harshorne" yeah brb in few years :)

[N____er]

The reveal at the end that you were recording this whole thing on an IPAD blew me away

[yearningcentipedes]

A list of the prerequisites for inter-universal teichmüller theory would be fun too

[the_eternal_student]

You forgot " Fermat's Last Theorem for dummies". Does anyone have the time to read all these books?

[r.w.emersonii]

I wonder how long it took Fermat to master all of this material!

[timtaler]

I have about 80% of these books; however, need to work 10 more years before deticating the rest of my life reading all of them

[Pseudify]

I think I’ll hold out for the hope that a simpler proof will be found before I die. Seriously though, I’m not a mathematician so forgive my naïveté, is there any hope that someone will ever come up with a simpler proof? Maybe one that could be understood by, say, an undergrad in math? When I think about how simple it is to understand the theorem and how monumentally difficult it is to understand the proof, I get the impression that it’s just a matter of time before someone comes up with another approach that will be much shorter and much easier to follow.

[the_eternal_student]

What book would you recommend for someone who is not that bright and only has time to read one book, but nonetheless is interested in fermat's last theorem?