Wiles plus Fermat equals a tidy sum

British mathematician Andrew Wiles was today due to receive the coveted and unique Wolfskehl Prize for solving Fermat's Last Theorem - marking the climax of one of the greatest mathematical challenges in history.

The theorem - that the equation xn + yn = *n has no solutions where n is greater than two - was formulated by French mathematician Pierre de Fermat in 1636. He failed to provide proof of it up until his death in 1665.

For more than three centuries professionals and amateurs battled with the proof, which is said to be the mathematicians' equivalent of splitting the atom.

The prize, awarded by the Gottingen Academy of Sciences in Germany, was established in the last will and testament of German mathematician Paul Wolkskehl in 1905. He bequeathed 100,000 gold marks to the person who could provide scientific proof for the theorem.

Just a year after the prize was announced, over 620 people had claimed to have found the proof. One impetus for their zeal was that 100,000 gold marks then represented the modern equivalent of more than Pounds 1 million.

After inflation and 1948 currency reform in Germany only DM7,500 was left - although today the sum has risen to DM70,000 (Pounds 25,000).

The Gottingen Academy of Sciences has received more than 5,000 manuscripts over the years and countless more have been sent to other organisations.

Professor Wiles, now at Princeton University, says he first heard of the theorem as a boy in Cambridge. He later became obsessed with it, working day and night for years before publishing his solution.

He has already received international acclaim for his achievement, but because of the conditions attached to the Wolfskehl Prize, it is awarded only two years after the correct proof has been published.

The academy described Professor Wiles's solution, made possible with abstract theories developed this century, as "an absolute triumph of mathematical research".

* See Books, page 26