According to a recent announcement, Oxford professor Sir Andrew Wiles will recieve a $700,000 prize for solving a 300-year-old math problem. It was a problem that had baffled mathematicians for centuries -- until British professor Andrew Wiles set his mind to it. "There are no whole number solutions to the equation xn + yn = zn when n is greater than 2." Otherwise known as "Fermat's Last Theorem," this equation was first posed by French mathematician Pierre de Fermat in 1637, and had stumped the world's brightest minds for more than 300 years. In the 1990s, Oxford professor Andrew Wiles finally solved the problem, and this week was awarded the hugely prestigious 2016 Abel Prize -- including a $700,000 windfall.
Learning of the award, Wiles told the University of Oxford: "It is a tremendous honor ... Fermat's equation was my passion from an early age, and solving it gave me an overwhelming sense of fulfillment. "It has always been my hope that my solution of this age-old problem would inspire many young people to take up mathematics and to work on the many challenges of this beautiful and fascinating subject." The prize, often described as the Nobel of mathematics, was awarded by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, with an official ceremony featuring Crown Prince Haakon of Norway to take place in May.
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