Re: Help in answering news story on refutation of fermat's last theorem

roy choco wrote:

> Hello,
>
> This will be my first post here. I am not a mathematician and cannot
> pretend to understand a majority of what is being discussed in this
> group. But a week ago I cam upon a news story entitled "UP Math prof
> proves Princeton man wrong". The story was about a certain Edgar
> Escultura proving the Andrew Wiles' proof of Fermat's last theorem was
> false. The news article can be found here
>
>
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2005/may/05/yehey/top_stories/20050505top4.html
>
> I wrote the newspaper questioning the veracity of the story. Since I
> am not knowledgeable about mathematics, I questioned them on their
> journalistic methods, I asked who was the source of the story and if
> they verified the story with other mathematicians.
>
> They published my letter together with the editor's reply here
>
>
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2005/may/10/yehey/opinion/20050510opi8.html
>
> In the reply, the editor mentioned several names of mathematicians
> that allegedly acknowledged and/or congratulated Mr. Escultura on his
> accomplishment.

Of course, all of that is beside the point, which is whether the alleged
Wiles quote actually is by Wiles at all. Also the citing of sci.math
as support for E^3 is dubious; he has garnered much critcism and little
support here.

I am very sceptical about this assertion. For a start Wiles is known
not to favour email communication. His famous long-distance collaboration
with Richard Taylor was done by fax, not by email, and he declines
to give an email address on the Princeton website. Also the rather
juvenile style of the alleged email does not match the careful use of
English in Wiles's published work.

My guess is that Escultura is being spoofed by some prankster
posing as Wiles.

--
Robin Chapman, www.maths.ex.ac.uk/~rjc/rjc.html
"Elegance is an algorithm"
Iain M. Banks, _The Algebraist_
.

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