Andrew Wiles

(1953)

Andrew Wiles is still a living legend who made great contributions to the Mathematical Society;
one of his greatest achievements includes his successful attempt to prove Fermat’s Last
Theorem. He is at present a Royal Society Research Professor at Oxford University.

Early Life
The British Mathematician Andrew Wiles was born on 11th April 1953; he is the son of Maurice
Frank Wiles and Patricia Wiles. His father was Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of
Oxford, he also worked as Chaplain at Ridgley Hall, Cambridge from 1952-55. This is probably
why Wiles was born in Cambridge and attended The King’s College School and The Leys
School, which were both located in Cambridge.

Personal details
He is married to Nada Canaan Wiles who earned her PhD from Princeton University (New
Jersey). They have three daughters named, Clare, Kate and Olivia. Andrew Wiles resides in
Oxford.
Mathematical Input
His mathematical research was somewhat mentored or assisted by John Coates, together they

utilized the methods of the Iwasawa Theory to work on the arithmetic of elliptic curves with

complex multiplication. He also had experience working with Barry Mazur regarding rational

numbers.
Academic flight
Wiles is known to be quite an intelligent mathematician, due to the fact that he uncovered
Fermat’s Last Theorem when he was only 10 years old. It is fascinating that such a young boy
was able to comprehend mathematical intricacies as such. He continued the idea of proving the
Theorem in 1986, once when Ribet had already proven Serre’s ε-conjecture and as a result
formulated a connection between Fermat’s Last theorem and Taniyama-Shimura conjecture.
Andrew Wiles presented this idea in 1993 publicly in a conference at Cambridge, but there was a
shortcoming within the proof, then with the help of his ex-student, Richard Taylor, in 1994 he
was able to fully support the proof which was published in Annals of Mathematics. This proof
resulted in him becoming quite popular and to suggest this he is a foreign member of the United
States National Academy of Science, hence the man became a international mathematical legend.

In 1974, Andrew Wiles gained his Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics; he studied at Merton
College (Oxford). He also carried out a research at Clare College, Cambridge and finally got his
PhD in 1980.

He stayed at The Institute for Advanced Studies at New Jersey in 1981 and later on became a
Professor at Princeton University. Apart from these academic preoccupations, he was also a
Guggenheim Fellow at Intitut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques (1985-86) and at the Ecole
Normale Superieure.