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who felt it should receive a special mention. Star trek has long been pointed to as an inspiration for young scientists and mathematicians, indeed, Stephen
Hawking even appeared in an episode as he was a huge fan. I very much doubt that many young scientists would have read the Annals of mathematics at the time but being informed that the theorum had been proved through Star trek would likely have piqued their interest and led them to find out more about what the characters were talking about. But hey, I guess Star trek isn't for everyone
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judging from our one-sentence description of the episode in the "in fiction" article, it was a throwaway line, not anything intrinsic to the plotline or historically significant as a particularly early piece of Fermat-fiction (as the Simon Flagg piece is), or having any nontrivial mathematical content (as maybe the
Simpson's reference does). —
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of the child article, not content fork filtered only by which fans whine the most when their fandom is snubbed. It should certainly not be the case that equivalent content here is both more detailed and less well-sourced than in the "in fiction" article, which was the case in the recent go-round. And
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I am disappointed that the example of Wile's proof mentioned in Star Trek Deep Space Nine was removed as it was aired on 12 June 1995, when Wile's proof had only been published in May 1995. This surely shows that the proof of Fermat's Last
Theorem was incredibly important to the writers of Star trek
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about his attempts to solve the theorem, still unsolved after 800 years. He concludes, "In our arrogance, we feel we are so advanced. And yet we cannot unravel a simple knot tied by a part-time French mathematician working alone without a computer." (Andrew Wiles's insight leading to his breakthrough
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from 1924? I mean, one may use B-T-P as a workaround: transform the cube into a ball, split that ball up into as few as 5 pieces and re-combine them in a different way, which yields TWO identical copies of the original ball (or abritrarily many copies, per
Churkin 2010). Transform those balls into
704:
Okay, David, thanks for your reply. There is no information about R.e.b. on his user page, contrary to your page. This grand conjecture is very broad, it's not in formal mathematical language, so it's impossible to prove or disprove. It smacks of talk of mathematicians over a cup of coffee. But no
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The relevance: being mentioned on a science fiction show set far in the future just weeks after the discovery occurred, and being added as an iconic event to the already completed script (or possibly the completed show), indicates its importance within society and the structure of mathematics.
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Despite my keep !vote on the AfD, I also strongly agree with removing self-sourced trivia such as this. Either here or (if kept) at the in fiction article, we should only include material covered in secondary sources that clearly state the significance of the theorem to the work in question.
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This section 2.5 is only reported by the NY Times and Wiles has had no comment on it. Saying there was renewed interest from serious mathematicians due to Vaughn seems inconsistent with the sections immediately above where there is clearly work being performed on it all through the centuries
771:
This is another equation that appears to be a counterexample to Fermat's Last
Theorem, but is also wrong. This equation does, however, similar to the one found in "The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace", appear correct if entered in a calculator with 10 significant figures.
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I'm finding several different claims that the book was lost right after his death, and all we have a transcripts made by his son, but I also heard claims that the
Bibliothèque nationale de France has the original copy with his notes. Any source on either?
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I agree, except for the classic "Simon Flagg" story (!) -- it should be easy for anyone who is motivated to find secondary sources for that story. (By the way, the significance of Fermat's theorem to that work is the most obvious
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In the "Simon Flagg" story it's central to the plot. In the Star Trek one it appears to be just a throwaway remark. I think if we're going to have a section like this here at all, we should swap the Star Trek bit out for
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It strikes me as irrelevant, and honestly, rather stupid. It contrasts with the rest of the article which is so well written and sourced. I propose to delete the section. Can I get some support from mathematicians?
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If the only grounds for inclusion is our speculation about its possible cultural significance based on guesses about the production schedule of a TV show, then we don't really have grounds for inclusion.
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You have a point if the conclusion was used in the page text, which it wouldn't be, but in discussion for or against inclusion the point of view seems fine (although I'm not a wikilawyer).
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makes this quite a precise and formal conjecture, not vague. Unfortunately
Knowledge rules prevent me from saying more about why I trust R.e.b.'s judgement on this sort of thing. —
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should be even more selective. Your addition did none of that. If you want to list TV episodes that mention stuff, maybe TV Tropes would be a better site to edit than
Knowledge. —
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mention should be returned. As mentioned, it was made only weeks after Wiley's discovery and was significantly pointed out in the episode. Let's return this one.
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There is far too much verbiage about minor Star Trek episodes. I'm removing the obvious excess. People who want to save it should move it to
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One is about integers and the other is about continuous shapes (or, if you prefer, real numbers). They are not very closely related. —
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that his proof of the theorem was "the most original approach to the proof since Wiles over three hundred years ago".)
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The article should clarify for layman readers how that 1670 statement by Fermat can co-exist / reconcile with the
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problem, we disagree on this, and you have done much more reading than I, so we let the section stand as it is. --
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I note that many articles have sections of arbitrary trivia of the same nature. It's a bit silly.
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on
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I concur; the trivia referenced directly to a ST episode was the worst. See also the ongoing .
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cubes and finished, or not if the logic is broken somewhere?
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Please delete all of my contributions and my account.
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There is a short section in the article beginning with
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including just before Vaughn's money became involved.
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While Harvey Friedman's grand conjecture implies ...
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proof happened four months after the series ended.)
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57:for general discussion of the article's subject.
1321:Knowledge level-4 vital articles in Mathematics
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1204:Participate in the deletion discussion at the
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47:for discussing improvements to the
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1336:Top-priority mathematics articles
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1005:Fermat's Last Theorem in fiction
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1331:C-Class mathematics articles
1115:. 2008-05-09. Archived from
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74:New to Knowledge? Welcome!
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814:season three episode "
761:Treehouse of Horror VI
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664:Special:Diff/373497345
601:Lowercase sigmabot III
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247:Auto-archiving period
124:Neutral point of view
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462:mathematics articles
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1199:Diophantus-II-8.jpg
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210:Archives
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