More Fermat Gossip

[john baez]

I guess it's clear that I disagree with those who say we should not
gossip about whether Wiles' proof of Fermat's Last Theorem is flawed or
not. I am all in favor of this kind of gossip as long as it is not
taken too seriously; I don't regard it as malicious, in particular,
because whether or not Wiles' proof is flawed I feel sure that he has
done some world-class mathematics.

So, here is what I got today, nth-hand...

Dear All,

It has been officially announced now, that there
is a gap in Wiles' proof of the Taniyama conjecture
for semi-stable elliptic curves, and thus in his
proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. This is very disappointing.

I do not know too many details, but I have heard from fairly
reliable sources that it is as silly an oversight as using
a result of Waldspurger, that is known for all sufficiently
large numbers, but Wiles uses it for some specific small
numbers. Everyone believes that the result does indeed
hold in these smaller cases, and there are a lot of people
working on proving it. Hopefully this is just a minor
glitch and not a major snag.

However we all know that FLT has this habit of wriggling
out of harm's way just as us number theorists think we
have it cornered ...

-------
I will not, however, pay off that bet until I get more solid evidence
than this!

[Robert D. Silverman]

In article <2colud$i...@galaxy.ucr.edu> ba...@guitar.ucr.edu (john baez) writes:
:I guess it's clear that I disagree with those who say we should not

:gossip about whether Wiles' proof of Fermat's Last Theorem is flawed or
:not. I am all in favor of this kind of gossip as long as it is not
:taken too seriously; I don't regard it as malicious, in particular,
:because whether or not Wiles' proof is flawed I feel sure that he has
:done some world-class mathematics.
:
:So, here is what I got today, nth-hand...
:
:Dear All,
:
:It has been officially announced now, that there

stuff deleted.....

Here is what *I* got:

: From R.G.E...@pmms.cam.ac.uk Mon Nov 22 15:19:28 1993
: Date: Mon, 22 Nov 93 20:16 GMT
: From: Richard Pinch <R.G.E...@pmms.cam.ac.uk>
: Subject: Re: Fermat hole
:
: Coates said in a lecture at the Newton Institue here last week that
: in his opinion there is a gap in the 'geometric Euler systems' part
: of the proof which "might take a week, or might take two years" to
: fill. I have spoken to him several times, but am still not sure on
: what basis he makes the claim: he does not have a copy of the MS. As
: far as I know the only copy in Cambridge is with Richard Taylor as
: one of the five referees of the paper for Inventiones, and he has
: consistently declined to comment until all the referees reach a
: common conclusion. So the situation is confused. Myself I don't
: see how Coates's view can be taken as authoritative at this stage:
: I plan to wait for word from Richard Taylor.
:
: Richard Pinch

--
Bob Silverman
These are my opinions and not MITRE's.
Mitre Corporation, Bedford, MA 01730
"You can lead a horse's ass to knowledge, but you can't make him think"