How Mathematics Saved a Person’s Life
I am pretty sure many of you might have been surprised by the above title. Most people think mathematics has the ability to make people kill themselves. But do you know, it has actually saved a person taking his own life. How? Read on to find out. Before that, a little background about a famous math problem that stumped mathematicians for nearly 3 centuries. Yes. Fermat’s Last Theorem.
Fermat’s Last Theorem
Fermat’s Last Theorem states that, the equation
has no solutions for n>2
n=1 has infinite solutions which all of us know
For n=2, the above equation is more widely known as Pythagoras Theorem, which has infinite many solutions like (3,4,5), (7,24,25), (8,15,17) and so on….
This theorem was stated by Fermat circa 1637. Apparently, he had written “I have a truly marvellous demonstration of this proposition which the margin is too narrow to contain”. Since then, this seemingly harmless equation has sent mathematicians across the world into a frenzy, each trying to prove the theorem and get their name etched forever in the history of mathematics
The attempts of various mathematicians over the years has been presented in a very interesting way in the book Fermat’s Last Theorem by Simon Singh. If you are really interested in knowing the history behind this theorem, I would suggest you to read this book. It is from this book that I have taken the anecdote below.
The person in question is Paul Wolfskehl, a German industrialist from Darmstadt whose life was saved because of Fermat’s Last Theorem. Read on to find out how.
Prelude
By the beginning of the 20th century, hopes of finding a proof for Fermat’s Theorem had not yielded fruitful results. Mathematics was beginning to move into newer areas of research and there was a risk of the newer generation mathematicians ignoring the problem and moving to other areas of research.
It was then in 1908 that Paul Wolfskehl breathed new life into the problem. The Wolfskehl family were known for their wealth and patronage of the arts and sciences. He had studied mathematics at university and continued to dabble at number theory though most of his time was spent in developing the family’s business. He refused to give up on the Fermat’s Last Theorem.
Though not a gifted mathematician, thanks to a chain of interesting events, his name would go on to forever be associated with Fermat’s problem and inspire many others to take up the problem.
The Story
Paul had been obsessed with a beautiful women, whose identity is not known(but that is not the point of this story). As many of you might have guessed, the woman rejected him. This led him to such a state of depression that he began contemplating suicide.
The meticulous man that he was, he planned his suicide in perfect detail. He had set a date for his suicide. On that day, he had planned to shoot himself through the head exactly at midnight. In the meanwhile, he had settled all his outstanding business affairs and on the D-Day, he had written his will and composed letters to his friends and family
But, he had planned and executed everything so efficiently that he had completed all his tasks slightly ahead of midnight and had some spare hours left. To while away the time, he headed to the library and began going through mathematical publications. Soon enough, he was staring at mathematician Kummer’s paper on the Fermat problem where Kummer had explained the failure of Cauchy in proving the said theorem.
Wolfskehl began reading the paper and going through the calculations line by line. Suddenly, he was taken aback by a very apparent gap in the logic written by Kummer. Kummer had made an assumption and failed to justify it in his paper. Wolfskehl was unsure whether what he had just uncovered was a serious flaw of whether Kummer’s assumption was justified. If the former were to be true, there was a chance that Fermat’s Theorem could be proved in a more easier way than what he had presumed.
Wolfskehl immediately set to work on the incomplete segment of the proof. However, he became so engrossed in developing a proof to either consolidate Kummer’s work or prove his assumption was wrong. He set to work all night and by dawn, he had completed his work. As far as the mathematical world was concerned, it was a bad news. Wolfskehl had successfully corrected Kummer’s proof and things were again back to square one (meaning the proof for Fermat’s Last Theorem still remained unattainable).
However, the good news was that, the appointed time for suicide had passed and Wolfskehl did not feel the need to commit suicide. After all, he had discovered an error in the great Ernst Kummer’s work and had also succeeded in correcting the same. Mathematics had given him hope and a desire to live.
Giving Back
Wolfskehl immediately tore up the letters he had written and rewrote his will. Upon his death in 1908, his will was read out wherein his family was shocked to find out that he had bequeathed a reward of 100,000 Marks to whomsoever could prove Fermat’s Last Theorem. This was his way of giving back whatever he could to the conundrum that had saved his life.
The prize was widely publicized in all the mathematical journals and its news spread all across Europe. However, it failed to arouse much interest among serious mathematicians as most of them started viewing Fermat’s Last Theorem as a lost cause and felt they could not waste their career on a problem that seemed to be unsolvable. However, the prize did succeed in introducing Fermat’s Last Theorem to a whole new lot of bright and eager minds.
British mathematician Andrew Wiles went on provide a proof for Fermat’s Last Theorem in 1993 and subsequently went on to win the prize in June 1997.
If you are somebody really interested in mathematics, I would suggest you to read the book “Fermat’s Last Theorem”. It would really interest you to know the journey of various mathematicians, the ups and downs they faced in their quest to solve Fermat’s Theorem and how Andrew Wiles finally managed to solve a problem that had been baffling mathematicians for nearly 350 years.
Reference
The book “Fermat’s Last Theorem” by Simon Singh
Originally published at http://infinitesimallysmallcom.wordpress.com on November 27, 2020.
