Pythagoras' Theorem, x2+y2=z2, is true when x=3, y=4, and z=5. In fact, there are an infinite number of whole number solutions for Pythagoras' Theorem.
But there are no known solutions for xn+yn=zn, when n equals any whole number other than 1 or 2. In 1637 mathematician Pierre de Fermat wrote in the margin of a book that he had devised a proof that there are no whole number solutions. The note was found 30 year later, and ever since then, no one has been able to prove it, though people have been trying for centuries.
This BBC documentary is about Oxford professor Andrew Wiles' lifelong obsession with Fermat's Last Theorem, which he read about when he was 10 years old. Wiles proved Fermat's Last Theorem in 1995. The proof is 150 pages long. If Fermat really did prove it, one can only guess how long his proof was.
