andrew wiles

I'm sure that some of them will be very hard and I'll have a sense of achievement again, but nothing will mean the same to me - there's no other problem in mathematics that could hold me the way that this one did.

- Andrew Wiles Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

We've lost something that's been with us for so long, and something that drew a lot of us into mathematics. But perhaps that's always the way with math problems, and we just have to find new ones to capture our attention.

- Andrew Wiles Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

The only way I could relax was when I was with my children.

- Andrew Wiles Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

Then when I reached college I realized that many people had thought about the problem during the 18th and 19th centuries and so I studied those methods.

- Andrew Wiles Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

I grew up in Cambridge in England, and my love of mathematics dates from those early childhood days.

- Andrew Wiles Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

I hope that seeing the excitement of solving this problem will make young mathematicians realize that there are lots and lots of other problems in mathematics which are going to be just as challenging in the future.

- Andrew Wiles Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

I tried to fit it in with some previous broad conceptual understanding of some part of mathematics that would clarify the particular problem I was thinking about.

- Andrew Wiles Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

It could be that the methods needed to take the next step may simply be beyond present day mathematics. Perhaps the methods I needed to complete the proof would not be invented for a hundred years.

- Andrew Wiles Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

It's fine to work on any problem, so long as it generates interesting mathematics along the way - even if you don't solve it at the end of the day.

- Andrew Wiles Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

The definition of a good mathematical problem is the mathematics it generates rather than the problem itself.

- Andrew Wiles Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

Well, some mathematics problems look simple, and you try them for a year or so, and then you try them for a hundred years, and it turns out that they're extremely hard to solve.

- Andrew Wiles Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

I was so obsessed by this problem that I was thinking about it all the time - when I woke up in the morning, when I went to sleep at night - and that went on for eight years.

- Andrew Wiles Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

I would wake up with it first thing in the morning, I would be thinking about it all day and I would be thinking about it when I went to sleep.

- Andrew Wiles Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

There's also a sense of freedom. I was so obsessed by this problem that I was thinking about if all the time - when I woke up in the morning, when I went to sleep at night, and that went on for eight years.

- Andrew Wiles Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

Perhaps the methods I needed to complete the proof would not be invented for a hundred years. So even if I was on the right track, I could be living in the wrong century.

- Andrew Wiles Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

Here was a problem, that I, a ten year old, could understand and I knew from that moment that I would never let it go. I had to solve it.

- Andrew Wiles Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

There are proofs that date back to the Greeks that are still valid today.

- Andrew Wiles Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

Always try the problem that matters most to you.

- Andrew Wiles Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

But the best problem I ever found, I found in my local public library.

- Andrew Wiles Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

Fermat said he had a proof.

- Andrew Wiles Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

However impenetrable it seems, if you don't try it, then you can never do it.

- Andrew Wiles Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

I don't believe Fermat had a proof. I think he fooled himself into thinking he had a proof.

- Andrew Wiles Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

I had this rare privilege of being able to pursue in my adult life, what had been my childhood dream.

- Andrew Wiles Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

I know it's a rare privilege, but if one can really tackle something in adult life that means that much to you, then it's more rewarding than anything I can imagine.

- Andrew Wiles Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes

I loved doing problems in school.

- Andrew Wiles Visit FamousQuotes.com for more inspirational quotes