The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. The world of mathematics is full of unreachable corners, where unsolvable problems live. Now, yet another has been exposed. In 1900, the ...

The proof Wiles finally came up with (helped by Richard Taylor) was something Fermat would never have dreamed up. It tackled the theorem indirectly, by means of an enormous bridge that mathematicians ...

A series of unsolved puzzles in number theory called Diophantine problems date back to 3,700 years ago. Over the years mathematicians have whittled away at them, and recent work has made significant ...