I hope that seeing the excitement of solving this problem will make young mathematicians realize that there are lots and lots of other problems in mathematics which are going to be just as challenging in the future.

Fermat was my childhood passion.

But perhaps that's always the way with math problems, and we just have to find new ones to capture our attention.

But what has made this problem special for amateurs is that there's a tiny possibility that there does exist an elegant 17th-century proof.

The next chapter is likely to provoke many mathematicians. This can't be helped. Mathematics is not what they think it is. (Ch. 10)

I grew up in Cambridge in England, and my love of mathematics dates from those early childhood days.

I invented something called The Oxford Muse. The Muses were women in mythology. They did not teach or require to be worshipped, but they were a source of inspi…