Fermat Vindicated Maybe

[Duncan Frissell <76630.3577@CompuServe.COM>]

From today's NYT:

Dr. Wiles [Andrew Wiles of Princeton University] presented his results 
this week at a small conference in Cambridge, England, his birthplace, 
on "Padic Galois Representations, Iwasawa Theory and the Tamagawa Numbers
of Motives."  He gave a lecture a day on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday 
with the title "Molecular Forms, Elliptic Curves and Galois 
Representations." There was no hint in the title that Fermat's last 
theorem would be discussed, Dr. Ribet said.

"As Wiles began his lectures, there was more and more speculation about 
what it was going to be," Dr. Ribet said.  The audience of specialists 
in these arcane fields swelled from about 40 on the first day to about 
60 today [23 June].  Finally, at the end of his third lecture, Dr. Wiles 
concluded that he had proved a general case of the Tatiyama conjecture.  
Then, seemingly as an afterthought, he noted that that meant that Fermat's
last theorem was true.  Q.E.D.  

Duncan Frissell

The bulk of whose experience with Fermat consists of a close reading of
"Mathmateca Fantasia" and other maths science fiction as an adolescent.  
Loved the 5 color map theorem as well.