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From: vasudev@druxt.UUCP (BhandarkarVK)
Newsgroups: net.math
Subject: Fermat's Last Theorem
Message-ID: <1003@druxt.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 9-Jul-84 17:44:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: druxt.1003
Posted: Mon Jul  9 17:44:45 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 10-Jul-84 02:44:20 EDT
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Denver
Lines: 28


A few months ago, National Public Radio reported that 
a British mathematician had claimed to have solved
Fermat's last Theorem. (Statement: x^n = y^n + z^n
has no solutions for n >= 3, and x, y, z, n integers)
They interviewed two professors from Cambridge who said
that they had seen this mathematician's
work and the proof seemed to be correct.

Considering that this theorem had been unsolved 
since Fermat's death about two centuries ago
(Fermat himself only stated the theorem and wrote 
in his diary margin that the proof was simple), 
I expected that there would be several followup
news items on this historic discovery.  However,
no followup seems to be forthcoming.

The theorem has profound implications in computing,
particularly in the field of cryptography.  But no
computer magazine that I have seen seems to think
that this item is newsworthy.  

Did anyone else on the net hear about this news item?
Maybe our net-friends across the Atlantic can shed
some light on this?

-vasudev
-ihnp4!drux2!druxt!vasudev