{"id":90196,"date":"2019-05-02T08:23:34","date_gmt":"2019-05-02T15:23:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/05\/using-computers-to-crack-open-centuries-old-mathematical-puzzles"},"modified":"2019-05-02T08:23:34","modified_gmt":"2019-05-02T15:23:34","slug":"using-computers-to-crack-open-centuries-old-mathematical-puzzles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/05\/using-computers-to-crack-open-centuries-old-mathematical-puzzles","title":{"rendered":"Using computers to crack open centuries-old mathematical puzzles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/using-computers-to-crack-open-centuries-old-mathematical-puzzles2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Andrew Wiles\u2019 proof of Fermat\u2019s Last Theorem is a famous example. Pierre de Fermat claimed in 1637 \u2013 in the margin of a copy of \u201cArithmetica,\u201d no less \u2013 to have solved the Diophantine equation x\u207f + y\u207f = z\u207f, but offered no justification. When Wiles proved it over 300 years later, mathematicians immediately took notice. If Wiles had developed a new idea that could solve Fermat, then what else could that idea do? Number theorists raced to understand Wiles\u2019 methods, generalizing them and finding new consequences.<\/p>\n<p>No single method exists that can solve all Diophantine equations. Instead, mathematicians cultivate various techniques, each suited for certain types of Diophantine problems but not others. So mathematicians classify these problems by their features or complexity, much like biologists might classify species by taxonomy.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/using-computers-to-crack-open-centuries-old-mathematical-puzzles-112940\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><\/p>\n<div style=\"clear:both;\">Read more<\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Andrew Wiles\u2019 proof of Fermat\u2019s Last Theorem is a famous example. Pierre de Fermat claimed in 1637 \u2013 in the margin of a copy of \u201cArithmetica,\u201d no less \u2013 to have solved the Diophantine equation x\u207f + y\u207f = z\u207f, but offered no justification. When Wiles proved it over 300 years later, mathematicians immediately took [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1523,41,2229],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-information-science","category-mathematics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90196\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}